From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Thu Jan 1 00:42:11 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 00:42:11 -0800 Subject: Vallista Message-ID: <200401010042.AA25821564@amish2000.com> From: David Silberstein Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 10:09:31 -0800 (PST) >On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, M J wrote: >>From: David Silberstein >>Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 18:14:45 -0800 (PST) >>>I dreamed that Morrolan's flying castle slipped through >>>a time-warp to the 14th Vallista Reign. > >Oh, and I nearly forgot: It's hard to tell in dreams, but I think >Daymar was there as well. There was no glomping that I can recall, >but perhaps they were all distracted by being elsewhen. REALLY? Daymar? My merciful heavens, I wish I had cool dreams like that! As for Daymar-glomping, I think that I need to mention again my utmost admiration for SKZB's rigid self-control and discipline. I _know_ he must be dying to describe all the Daymar-glomping that goes on in all places where Daymar might be found, but then he'd have no time or space to devote to Vlad's little adventures. I do think that choosing to give Vlad his turn in the spotlight and glomp-epicenter is DAMNED decent of Steve, and he deserves much praise for this sensible stance. That said, David, please do continue to dream of flying castles and time travel and LOTS OF DAYMAR-GLOMPAGE. >>Tangent: are Dragaerans _allowed_ to time-travel? Wouldn't >>the gods put a pretty heavy stricture on that sort of thing? > >Well, Devera does it fairly often, but of course, she's a special >case. She's DEVERA. I suspect that the only rule that applies to her is the one about little girls with big brown eyes getting all the cookies they want. >And when Morrolan and Vlad met Baritt in the Paths of the Dead, Baritt >even told them (well, he told Morrolan; he was not on speaking terms >with Vlad) not to warn his past self. ... It might've been just Barritt, that. Barritt is a contrary sort. Cute as teh DICKENS, bless him, but contrary. >>>They spoke to a woman very close to the Emperor - possibly > >Oh, and I think it might have been an Empress rather than an Emperor. Duh. Empresses, taking their cue from Star Mrs Gordon and Arshesu Nei, are generally cooler than Emperors. >>>After 200,000 years, they've just barely invented bows & >>arrows? > >Well, I seem to recall something along those lines, but that never >made sense to me. Plenty of jungle-dwellers in our world use/used >bows-and-arrows. And of course, Dragaerans eventually moved out >from the jungle. NO! I figured it out! I did! I really did! See, Noish-pa, who KNOWS stuff, calls them "elfs." So the Dragaerans, rightfully being disdainful about these odd "fangirlish" notions that all elves are hotshot archers and have great yew bows strung with the hair of blonde elf-ladies, reject ALL ARCHERY-THINGS so they won't be perpetuating fantasy elf-toxology stereotypes. I think I've got a watertight case here. Somebody like _Morrolan_ will in no way contribute to fantasy stereotypes, HECK NO NOT HIM. ? MJ From davids at kithrup.com Thu Jan 1 13:18:31 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 13:18:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Vallista In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 30 Dec 2003, David Silberstein wrote: > >Speaking of Vallista, I find myself wondering just how inventive >they are. This ties in to the whole notion of technology on >Dragaera possibly being limited by the intervention of the gods, >or by demons, or by the Orb, or by the Jenoine or *something*. >After 200,000 years, they've just barely invented bows & arrows? > >Are Vallista who are too creative (or are too creative in certain >areas, such as military applications of chemistry or basic mechanics) >just disappeared? > Another thought about Vallista: Perhaps it is the Vallista Council who are the final arbiters of what technologies may be used in the Empire (and they are presumably backed by the laws of the Empire), and all Vallista are presumably bound to abide by their decisions. So perhaps the Vallista know about bows, and maybe even gunpowder, and have know of such things for many Cycles now - but they make sure that no-one *uses* it. Fornia may have been due to suffer penalties for using bows in his campaign, but perhaps the penalty would have been light enough (for such fairly simple tech) that he figured it was worth the risk. The question arises about how they might prevent such inventions from arising in the East, but perhaps there are Vallista agents of the Empire who keep an eye on technologies outside the Empire, and are licensed to destroy anything too advanced or being used in a way they don't like, along with the hapless inventors. Or perhaps the inventors are conscripted into House Vallista, and kidnapped into the Empire, where they may work on inventions under the Vallista Council's strict supervision, thereby increasing the Vallista's knowledgebase while being under their control. From scs at di.org Thu Jan 1 17:33:44 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 20:33:44 -0500 Subject: disturbing thought In-Reply-To: References: <200312310506.AA121307226@amish2000.com> <20040101005011.GA28957@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <20040102013344.GB48233@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Dec 31, 2003 at 04:57:46PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > It just occurred to me that if Dragaerans have access to experience of > their past lives, presumably they have access to their time being > forcibly evolved by the J, about as horrible an ordeal as a people > could undergo. This would I imagine lead to strong feelings among the > elite (at least) against the J. On the other hand, it might be an indication that Dragaeran reincarnation is an artifact of the Jenoine; or something that semi-coincidentally happened on or around the founding of the Empire. The Necromancer has let drop certian statements that make it clear There's More Than One Way for souls to proceed after separation from the body. From bonham15 at cox.net Thu Jan 1 22:22:14 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 00:22:14 -0600 Subject: Vallista References: Message-ID: <000401c3d0f8$c3af0580$6401a8c0@user79dn2jmjai> ummm. what if their physics/chemistry are just different than ours? say like nothing exists on par with bat guano that can be played with to make a rudimentary explosive/propellant.... their 'oxygen' isn't fast enough reacting to allow near instantaneous explosions to occur or some other fancy notion... but then i'm recalling those highfalutin terms for pulling ideas outta my a** at the moment.. andy > > > > >Speaking of Vallista, I find myself wondering just how inventive > >they are. This ties in to the whole notion of technology on > >Dragaera possibly being limited by the intervention of the gods, > >or by demons, or by the Orb, or by the Jenoine or *something*. > >After 200,000 years, they've just barely invented bows & arrows? > > > >Are Vallista who are too creative (or are too creative in certain > >areas, such as military applications of chemistry or basic mechanics) > >just disappeared? > > > > Another thought about Vallista: Perhaps it is the Vallista Council > who are the final arbiters of what technologies may be used in the > Empire (and they are presumably backed by the laws of the Empire), and > all Vallista are presumably bound to abide by their decisions. So > perhaps the Vallista know about bows, and maybe even gunpowder, and > have know of such things for many Cycles now - but they make sure that > no-one *uses* it. > > Fornia may have been due to suffer penalties for using bows in his > campaign, but perhaps the penalty would have been light enough (for > such fairly simple tech) that he figured it was worth the risk. > > The question arises about how they might prevent such inventions from > arising in the East, but perhaps there are Vallista agents of the > Empire who keep an eye on technologies outside the Empire, and are > licensed to destroy anything too advanced or being used in a way they > don't like, along with the hapless inventors. Or perhaps the > inventors are conscripted into House Vallista, and kidnapped into the > Empire, where they may work on inventions under the Vallista Council's > strict supervision, thereby increasing the Vallista's knowledgebase > while being under their control. > From mtiller at ntlworld.com Fri Jan 2 02:09:13 2004 From: mtiller at ntlworld.com (Mark Tiller) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 10:09:13 -0000 Subject: Vallista In-Reply-To: <000401c3d0f8$c3af0580$6401a8c0@user79dn2jmjai> Message-ID: <20040102100814.MKEI29762.mta02-svc.ntlworld.com@sweetdre123rzw> > > > >Speaking of Vallista, I find myself wondering just how inventive > >they are. This ties in to the whole notion of technology on > >Dragaera possibly being limited by the intervention of the gods, > >or by demons, or by the Orb, or by the Jenoine or *something*. > >After 200,000 years, they've just barely invented bows & arrows? > > And if teleportation is only just becoming common (last few hundred years) how about the the steam engine and the train? That's just too useful a technology to supress. Mark Or do we just assume that for plot reasons, or simply because he didn't think of it, SKZB has given us some things that can't be reconciled. From greyw01f at hotmail.com Fri Jan 2 09:28:31 2004 From: greyw01f at hotmail.com (Jon Carey) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 17:28:31 +0000 Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* Message-ID: Having not read LoCB Laszlo is either a witch, or houses a soul that is not Easterner. Perhaps there is more to the ceremony of shipping the bodies down to Deathsgate than we think... While this is *blatant* postulation that is unfounded on almost every account, perhaps having one's body destroyed by raw chaos (or maybe anything) before the soul can truly leave has an odd effect on a soul. We know that in FHYA, the Emperor is killed *before* the explosion. Yet the soul is said to be retrievable before 3 days have elapsed in one or other of the Vladiad. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that the soul is in the *body*. We know from another book, I think _Jhereg_ that a Morganti blade cannot eat the soul of one who has been killed by a normal blade--but then, this may be Vlad getting desperate. Perhaps there is, during the 3 days after bodydeath, some link (probably psychic or psionic, like Vlad used to get a thread on Mellar, using one of Mellar's hairs) between the body and the soul that can be traced or pulled upon by a sorceror, resulting in revivification. If the soul *does* depart, however, it may need to be shipped to deathsgate in order to get to the paths of the dead--or maybe not. Who knows where Death's gate is? Perhaps it is everywhere there are dead people. Regardless of that, perhaps having that thread severed by the destruction of the body (we know it prevents revivification) leads to odd things happening, with regards to reincarnation. Like, for instance, having a Dragaeran soul enter an Easterner body. In any event, all of this can be explained away by saying that the Gods reincarnate those who are still useful. If necessary, I'm certain that a Phoenix soul could be reincarnated, despite the lack of a Phoenix body. I would imagine that the saving of the cycle would be sufficient cause to the gods to break a couple rules. Jon ----Original Message Follows---- From: "bonham15" To: "Dragaera List" Subject: Re: disturbing thought Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 22:31:01 -0600 sethra said she had to do drastic things to save aliera's soul.. i think anyone's soul that encounters raw chaos is pretty much grist for the mill. the only *known* exceptions for this are people descended from kieron, adron himself (in some form), and aliera (oh and presumably mario, but its not *known*) andy > It just occurred to me that if Dragaerans have access to experience of > their past lives, presumably they have access to their time being > forcibly evolved by the J, about as horrible an ordeal as a people > could undergo. This would I imagine lead to strong feelings among the > elite (at least) against the J. > > A side issue - I wonder if Tortaalik's soul is in the Paths or has been > reincarnated. It would be interesting to query it about certain aspects > of events leading up to the Disaster. > _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From agrajag at dragaera.net Fri Jan 2 10:40:31 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 13:40:31 -0500 Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1073068831.4268.19.camel@pel> On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 12:28, Jon Carey wrote: > Having not read LoCB > > Perhaps there is, during the 3 days > after bodydeath, some link (probably psychic or psionic, like Vlad used to > get a thread on Mellar, using one of Mellar's hairs) between the body and > the soul that can be traced or pulled upon by a sorceror, resulting in > revivification. It would have to be more than 3 days. Remember in PotD, it took them *months* to reach Deathgate Falls. Suppose they were carrying a body with them. The soul would have to somehow be still attached to the body when it went over. Which reminds me of another thing that has bothered me about the Paths. How many people actually get sent over the Falls. Think about how long it took Piro and Company to get there. And think about how often someone dies. Do you really think each city would be able to have at least one or two entourages leaving for the Falls every day? There wouldn't be any city left. Everyone would be on their way to or from the Falls. So it must be a very rare thing to get sent over. Obviously wouldn't happen for a Teckla.. and I doubt they could even do it for every noble.. From mklahn at mac.com Fri Jan 2 11:23:18 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 13:23:18 -0600 Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <1073068831.4268.19.camel@pel> References: <1073068831.4268.19.camel@pel> Message-ID: <1E9435E2-3D59-11D8-B748-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Jan 2, 2004, at 12:40 , Jag wrote: > It would have to be more than 3 days. Remember in PotD, it took them > *months* to reach Deathgate Falls. Suppose they were carrying a body > with them. The soul would have to somehow be still attached to the > body > when it went over. Well, the 3 day limit was only in terms of revivification, not in being able to enter the Paths from Deathsgate. So, if you're longer than 3 days dead, you can still enter the Paths if your body goes over the Falls, but you can't be revivified. Another argument supporting the idea that going over Deathsgate is somewhat rare would be the mountain of bones that would be there if over 200,000 years you're dumping every body over the falls. However, remember in Dragon that they do ship bodies from the battle to Deathsgate for the trip, so common warriors of House Dragon are apparently going to make the trip. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From agrajag at dragaera.net Fri Jan 2 11:28:45 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 14:28:45 -0500 Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <1E9435E2-3D59-11D8-B748-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <1073068831.4268.19.camel@pel> <1E9435E2-3D59-11D8-B748-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <1073071724.4268.22.camel@pel> On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 14:23, Matthew Klahn wrote: > On Jan 2, 2004, at 12:40 , Jag wrote: > > It would have to be more than 3 days. Remember in PotD, it took them > > *months* to reach Deathgate Falls. Suppose they were carrying a body > > with them. The soul would have to somehow be still attached to the > > body > > when it went over. > > Well, the 3 day limit was only in terms of revivification, not in being > able to enter the Paths from Deathsgate. So, if you're longer than 3 > days dead, you can still enter the Paths if your body goes over the > Falls, but you can't be revivified. I never meant to say that they could be revivified after 3 days. Just that there is definately a connection between the corpse and soul that lasts long after death. > > Another argument supporting the idea that going over Deathsgate is > somewhat rare would be the mountain of bones that would be there if > over 200,000 years you're dumping every body over the falls. Good point. > However, > remember in Dragon that they do ship bodies from the battle to > Deathsgate for the trip, so common warriors of House Dragon are > apparently going to make the trip. Interesting. Although, everyone of House Dragon is still a noble. From mneme at io.com Fri Jan 2 12:10:14 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:10:14 -0600 Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <1073071724.4268.22.camel@pel> References: <1073068831.4268.19.camel@pel> <1E9435E2-3D59-11D8-B748-000393D1260C@mac.com> <1073071724.4268.22.camel@pel> Message-ID: <16373.53286.260329.513680@fnord.io.com> Jag writes: >On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 14:23, Matthew Klahn wrote: >> On Jan 2, 2004, at 12:40 , Jag wrote: >> Another argument supporting the idea that going over Deathsgate is >> somewhat rare would be the mountain of bones that would be there if >> over 200,000 years you're dumping every body over the falls. >Good point. Oh, I don't know -- it's magic. It's not like when you go over the falls, you end up in -normal- space, per se -- they call it "Deathsgate" for a reason. ^^^^ >> However, remember in Dragon that they do ship bodies from the >> battle to Deathsgate for the trip, so common warriors of House >> Dragon are apparently going to make the trip. >Interesting. Although, everyone of House Dragon is still a noble. I wouldn't expect poor Tekla to make the trip, necessarily. I -would- expect well-to-do Tekla to do so, though. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From mneme at io.com Fri Jan 2 12:10:14 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:10:14 -0600 Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <1073071724.4268.22.camel@pel> References: <1073068831.4268.19.camel@pel> <1E9435E2-3D59-11D8-B748-000393D1260C@mac.com> <1073071724.4268.22.camel@pel> Message-ID: <16373.53286.260329.513680@fnord.io.com> Jag writes: >On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 14:23, Matthew Klahn wrote: >> On Jan 2, 2004, at 12:40 , Jag wrote: >> Another argument supporting the idea that going over Deathsgate is >> somewhat rare would be the mountain of bones that would be there if >> over 200,000 years you're dumping every body over the falls. >Good point. Oh, I don't know -- it's magic. It's not like when you go over the falls, you end up in -normal- space, per se -- they call it "Deathsgate" for a reason. ^^^^ >> However, remember in Dragon that they do ship bodies from the >> battle to Deathsgate for the trip, so common warriors of House >> Dragon are apparently going to make the trip. >Interesting. Although, everyone of House Dragon is still a noble. I wouldn't expect poor Tekla to make the trip, necessarily. I -would- expect well-to-do Tekla to do so, though. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From mam at theworld.com Fri Jan 2 12:54:22 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 15:54:22 -0500 Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <1E9435E2-3D59-11D8-B748-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: #Another argument supporting the idea that going over Deathsgate is #somewhat rare would be the mountain of bones that would be there if #over 200,000 years you're dumping every body over the falls. However, #remember in Dragon that they do ship bodies from the battle to #Deathsgate for the trip, so common warriors of House Dragon are #apparently going to make the trip. But there's plenty of room for Steve to wave his hands about what happens to the bones as the millennia pass. Especially considering that natural laws as we know them do not necessarily apply in the PotD. The bodies don't stink. Time goes oddly. Space goes oddly. There's LOTS of room. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From warlord at dragon.com Fri Jan 2 14:53:25 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 17:53:25 -0500 Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <16373.53286.260329.513680@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Joshua Kronengold [mailto:mneme at io.com] > > Jag writes: > >On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 14:23, Matthew Klahn wrote: > >> On Jan 2, 2004, at 12:40 , Jag wrote: > >> Another argument supporting the idea that going over Deathsgate is > >> somewhat rare would be the mountain of bones that would be there if > >> over 200,000 years you're dumping every body over the falls. > >Good point. > > Oh, I don't know -- it's magic. > > It's not like when you go over the falls, you end up in -normal- > space, per se -- they call it "Deathsgate" for a reason. > ^^^^ Big circle? Flushes sideways? ah HA! :) W > > >> However, remember in Dragon that they do ship bodies from the > >> battle to Deathsgate for the trip, so common warriors of House > >> Dragon are apparently going to make the trip. > >Interesting. Although, everyone of House Dragon is still a noble. > > I wouldn't expect poor Tekla to make the trip, necessarily. > > I -would- expect well-to-do Tekla to do so, though. > > -- > Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ > _,,,--,,_ ,) > --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' > -, ;-;;' > /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) > )-,_ ) /\ > /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos > '---''(_/--' (_/-' > > From davids at kithrup.com Fri Jan 2 18:33:51 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 18:33:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Teckla and Tekla Message-ID: Another question that only Steve might be able to answer: Was the naming of House Teckla in any way related to the Hungarian ethnologist Tekla D?m?t?r? [1] [1] Or without accents: Domotor From casca913 at gbronline.com Fri Jan 2 18:38:29 2004 From: casca913 at gbronline.com (Charlie Smith) Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 20:38:29 -0600 Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* References: <1073068831.4268.19.camel@pel> <1E9435E2-3D59-11D8-B748-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <002901c3d1a2$acc03290$7d570945@pentium4> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew Klahn" To: "SKZB List" Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 1:23 PM Subject: Re: disturbing thought *spoilers* > Another argument supporting the idea that going over Deathsgate is > somewhat rare would be the mountain of bones that would be there if > over 200,000 years you're dumping every body over the falls.> Perhaps they have a sort of ethereal "Spring Cleaning" were the purple robed servants go do the dirty work that literary license would normally do. I picture the scuffle of thousands of little feet carrying brooms and mops and boxes and boxes of trash bags... From skzb at dreamcafe.com Sat Jan 3 11:19:40 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 11:19:40 -0800 Subject: Teckla and Tekla References: Message-ID: <005001c3d22e$8a3a9710$fe00000a@steve> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Silberstein" To: "Dragaera List" Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 6:33 PM Subject: Teckla and Tekla Another question that only Steve might be able to answer: Was the naming of House Teckla in any way related to the Hungarian ethnologist Tekla D?m?t?r? [1] "Tekla" is a very common Jewish name. It was the name of my Grandparents dog, a miniature schnauzer who spent all of his time shaking, trembling, quivering in fear, and hiding under furniture. That's who the House was named after. From davids at kithrup.com Sat Jan 3 12:06:55 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 12:06:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Teckla and Tekla In-Reply-To: <005001c3d22e$8a3a9710$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: > > "Tekla" is a very common Jewish name. Huh. *I've* never heard of it as a Jewish name. Reading /Jhereg/ was the first time I saw it, and it looked very unfamiliar (it doesn't *look* Jewish). The only other instance I've seen was Ms. Domotor. One of my research bookmarks is http://www.behindthename.com/ And it says that: http://www.behindthename.com/nm/t.html TEKLA f Scandinavian, Russian, Polish Scandinavian, Russian and Polish form of THEKLA And for Thekla it says: http://www.behindthename.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?terms=thekla THEKLA f Greek From the ancient Greek name Theokleia, which meant "glory of God" from the Greek elements theos meaning "god" and kleos meaning "glory". Saint Thekla was supposedly the first female martyr (1st century). Well. > It was the name of my Grandparents dog, a miniature schnauzer who >spent all of his time shaking, trembling, quivering in fear, and >hiding under furniture. That's who the House was named after. > Ah, now that part I can understand. Thanks. From PQuigleyII at aol.com Sat Jan 3 22:46:17 2004 From: PQuigleyII at aol.com (PQuigleyII at aol.com) Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 01:46:17 EST Subject: Jhereg and Jerry G. (was Teckla and Tekla) Message-ID: <26.436f0ba1.2d2910b9@aol.com> Given the extensive number of Grateful Dead references in Brokedown Palace, I was wondering if the house Jhereg was named after Jerry Garcia. Jerry G. -> Jhereg? -Patrick Quigley From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 5 01:30:49 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 01:30:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: disturbing thought *spoilers* In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > #Another argument supporting the idea that going over Deathsgate is > #somewhat rare would be the mountain of bones that would be there... > > But there's plenty of room for Steve to wave his hands about what > happens to the bones as the millennia pass. Especially considering that > natural laws as we know them do not necessarily apply in the PotD. The > bodies don't stink. Time goes oddly. Space goes oddly. There's LOTS of > room. Perhaps the gods threaten bad purple robers with dogs gnawing on their skeletons forever... I just read a few sentences of the Decline and Fall via the Gibbon-o-Matic - http://www.his.com/cgi-bin/fortune.gibbon - and acknowledge my effort above is woeful, especially "their". From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Jan 5 04:17:47 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 07:17:47 -0500 Subject: Teckla and Tekla In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2C5E7A2E-3F79-11D8-9A75-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Jan 3, 2004, at 3:06 PM, David Silberstein wrote: > On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: > >> >> "Tekla" is a very common Jewish name. > > Huh. *I've* never heard of it as a Jewish name. Reading /Jhereg/ was > the first time I saw it, and it looked very unfamiliar (it doesn't > *look* Jewish). The only other instance I've seen was Ms. Domotor. > > > One of my research bookmarks is > > http://www.behindthename.com/ > > And it says that: > > http://www.behindthename.com/nm/t.html > > TEKLA f Scandinavian, Russian, Polish > Scandinavian, Russian and Polish form of THEKLA > > And for Thekla it says: > > http://www.behindthename.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?terms=thekla > > THEKLA f Greek > From the ancient Greek name Theokleia, which meant "glory of God" > from the Greek elements theos meaning "god" and kleos meaning > "glory". Saint Thekla was supposedly the first female martyr (1st > century). > > > Well. > >> It was the name of my Grandparents dog, a miniature schnauzer who >> spent all of his time shaking, trembling, quivering in fear, and >> hiding under furniture. That's who the House was named after. >> > > Ah, now that part I can understand. Thanks. > > Although this seriously argues against its being a common Jewish name > (one of which I have never heard). From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Mon Jan 5 10:33:47 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 10:33:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: Another question for Steve, re: Drien.... Message-ID: <200401051833.i05IXlg14609@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> If I'm recalling correctly, Drien was either a female-turned- male, or a male-turned-female. Did the name come from Charles d'Eon de Beaumont? (I recently read of d'Eon (changed from Deon), in "By the Sword", and the similarity was remarkable. I had to ask.:) For those interested: d'Eon lived in the 18th Century and was an excellent fencer as well as being a secret agent, soldier, lawyer, diplomat, etc. As d'Eon would, throughout his life, dress sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman, his sex wasn't known until his death (fooled a great many people, too...). Just curious to know if that was were Drien came from, or if it was just coincidence. Cheers! Chris From Talpianna at aol.com Mon Jan 5 11:26:03 2004 From: Talpianna at aol.com (Talpianna at aol.com) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 14:26:03 EST Subject: Teckla and Tekla Message-ID: <76.366bb478.2d2b144b@aol.com> There is an apocryphal book called the Acts of Paul and Thekla that is basically a Christianized version of a Hellenistic romance; I can't recall if it actually made it into the Apocrypha or is merely part of the Pseudepigrapha. Here is an account of her legend: http://www.antiochian.org/midwest/Articles/Thekla_Equal_To_The_Apostles_And_Fi rst_Martyr.htm tal From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 5 11:29:12 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 11:29:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Teckla and Tekla In-Reply-To: <76.366bb478.2d2b144b@aol.com> References: <76.366bb478.2d2b144b@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 Talpianna at aol.com wrote: > There is an apocryphal book called the Acts of Paul and Thekla that is > basically a Christianized version of a Hellenistic romance; I can't > recall if it actually made it into the Apocrypha or is merely part of > the Pseudepigrapha. Here is an account of her legend: > > http://www.antiochian.org/midwest/Articles/Thekla_Equal_To_The_Apostles_And_Fi > rst_Martyr.htm Obligatory mention of the Book of The New Sun - Thecla is a major Wolfean character. From matthew at infodancer.org Mon Jan 5 11:48:07 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 13:48:07 -0600 Subject: Teckla and Tekla In-Reply-To: References: <76.366bb478.2d2b144b@aol.com> Message-ID: <20040105194807.GP8224@infodancer.org> On Mon, Jan 05, 2004 at 11:29:12AM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 Talpianna at aol.com wrote: > > There is an apocryphal book called the Acts of Paul and Thekla that is > > basically a Christianized version of a Hellenistic romance; I can't > > recall if it actually made it into the Apocrypha or is merely part of > > the Pseudepigrapha. Here is an account of her legend: > > http://www.antiochian.org/midwest/Articles/Thekla_Equal_To_The_Apostles_And_Fi > > rst_Martyr.htm > Obligatory mention of the Book of The New Sun - Thecla is a major > Wolfean character. Which is actually pretty damned impressive, considering . -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From charles_sumner at harvard.edu Mon Jan 5 13:44:48 2004 From: charles_sumner at harvard.edu (charles_sumner at harvard.edu) Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 16:44:48 -0500 Subject: Characters and Cars Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20031223100017.00ae3d30@camail2.harvard.edu> So my wife and I just bought a new car (yay us) and have been trying to come up with a name for it. As both of us are Brust fans, I suggested Lady Teldra. My wife however, wisely pointed out that Lady Teldra would never consent to being a Subaru wagon, she'd be a Bentley. This got us thinking about what types of vehicles the Dragaeran characters would be. Which, of course, leads to a silly list... Vlad ... Subaru Outback (since it can't decide whether it's a tough city car or an off-road adventurer) Loiosh ... MINI Cooper (small and zippy, with a sense of humor) Morrolan ... BMW (luxury and power, but thinks too highly of itself -- black, of course) Aliera ... Hummer (naturally aggressive, with the ability to crush other cars -- not that she's trying to compensate for her stature) Sethra ... Ford Pickup (strength to move mountains, but down to earth once you get past the power) Kiera ... Ford Focus (the get anywhere around town car) Teldra ... Bentley (classy luxury and service -- not a car but an automobile) Kragar ... Honda Accord (easy-going, all-purpose car that fades into the background) Daymar ... Dodge Viper (very fast, but focused only on what that speed can accomplish) Khaavren ... Jaguar (old-fashioned power and grace -- plus it's a cat) Pel ... Porsche (fast, changes directions quickly, and overly concerned with style) Aerich ... Aston Martin (classy like the Bentley, but with more power) Tazendra ... Land Rover SUV (rugged and does a little bit of everything) Mica ... Volkswagon (everyday, dependable people's car) Zerika ... Rolls-Royce (the car of the Empress after all) Cawti ... Toyota Hybrid (the car that's concerned about the future) Noish-Pa ... Jeep (a tough old car that can stand up to anything) Mario ... Lamborghini (most expensive performance car out there, and you never see one) Necromancer ... Panoz (a very powerful, exotic car) Verra ... Infinity (what else would a deity be) B?lcses?g ... Harley Davidson Power Cruiser Cycle :-) You many now commence arguing with my suggestions... Charley Sumner charles_sumner at harvard.edu An open mind is one thing, letting geese run around in there is completely different. From umbraenoctis at hotmail.com Tue Jan 6 10:14:03 2004 From: umbraenoctis at hotmail.com (James Griffin) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 10:14:03 -0800 Subject: Characters and Cars Message-ID: Sethra the Younger- the NEW Ford F150- Absolutely positively the New best Ford truck out there. James Grifin, Still Another Vlad faN >From: charles_sumner at harvard.edu >To: dragaera at dragaera.info >Subject: Characters and Cars >Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 16:44:48 -0500 > >So my wife and I just bought a new car (yay us) and have been trying to >come up with a name for it. As both of us are Brust fans, I suggested Lady >Teldra. My wife however, wisely pointed out that Lady Teldra would never >consent to being a Subaru wagon, she'd be a Bentley. > >This got us thinking about what types of vehicles the Dragaeran characters >would be. Which, of course, leads to a silly list... > >Vlad ... Subaru Outback (since it can't decide whether it's a tough city >car or an off-road adventurer) >Loiosh ... MINI Cooper (small and zippy, with a sense of humor) >Morrolan ... BMW (luxury and power, but thinks too highly of itself -- >black, of course) >Aliera ... Hummer (naturally aggressive, with the ability to crush other >cars -- not that she's trying to compensate for her stature) >Sethra ... Ford Pickup (strength to move mountains, but down to earth once >you get past the power) >Kiera ... Ford Focus (the get anywhere around town car) >Teldra ... Bentley (classy luxury and service -- not a car but an >automobile) >Kragar ... Honda Accord (easy-going, all-purpose car that fades into the >background) >Daymar ... Dodge Viper (very fast, but focused only on what that speed can >accomplish) >Khaavren ... Jaguar (old-fashioned power and grace -- plus it's a cat) >Pel ... Porsche (fast, changes directions quickly, and overly concerned >with style) >Aerich ... Aston Martin (classy like the Bentley, but with more power) >Tazendra ... Land Rover SUV (rugged and does a little bit of everything) >Mica ... Volkswagon (everyday, dependable people's car) >Zerika ... Rolls-Royce (the car of the Empress after all) >Cawti ... Toyota Hybrid (the car that's concerned about the future) >Noish-Pa ... Jeep (a tough old car that can stand up to anything) >Mario ... Lamborghini (most expensive performance car out there, and you >never see one) >Necromancer ... Panoz (a very powerful, exotic car) >Verra ... Infinity (what else would a deity be) >B?lcses?g ... Harley Davidson Power Cruiser Cycle :-) > >You many now commence arguing with my suggestions... > > > >Charley Sumner charles_sumner at harvard.edu > >An open mind is one thing, letting geese >run around in there is completely different. > _________________________________________________________________ Get reliable dial-up Internet access now with our limited-time introductory offer. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Tue Jan 6 13:18:21 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 13:18:21 -0800 Subject: Characters and Cars Message-ID: <200401061318.AA251724102@amish2000.com> From: "James Griffin" Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 10:14:03 -0800 >Sethra the Younger- the NEW Ford F150- Absolutely positively the New best >Ford truck out there. I didn't think they made that sucker in pastels. ? MJ ~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~ http://erythros.livejournal.com/ ~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~ From warlord at dragon.com Tue Jan 6 14:05:58 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 17:05:58 -0500 Subject: Characters and Cars In-Reply-To: <200401061318.AA251724102@amish2000.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: M J [mailto:saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com] > Subject: RE: Characters and Cars > > > > From: "James Griffin" > Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 10:14:03 -0800 > > >Sethra the Younger- the NEW Ford F150- Absolutely positively the > New best > >Ford truck out there. > > I didn't think they made that sucker in pastels. ROTFL! W From dusty at sayersnet.com Tue Jan 6 14:50:28 2004 From: dusty at sayersnet.com (J A 'Dusty' Sayers) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 17:50:28 -0500 Subject: Another question for Steve, re: Drien.... In-Reply-To: <200401051833.i05IXlg14609@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> References: <200401051833.i05IXlg14609@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Message-ID: <3FFB3BB4.6000807@sayersnet.com> Chris Olson - SunPS wrote: >If I'm recalling correctly, Drien was either a female-turned- >male, or a male-turned-female. > >Did the name come from Charles d'Eon de Beaumont? (I recently >read of d'Eon (changed from Deon), in "By the Sword", and >the similarity was remarkable. I had to ask.:) > >For those interested: d'Eon lived in the 18th Century and was >an excellent fencer as well as being a secret agent, soldier, >lawyer, diplomat, etc. As d'Eon would, throughout his life, >dress sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman, his sex >wasn't known until his death (fooled a great many people, too...). > >Just curious to know if that was were Drien came from, or >if it was just coincidence. > >Cheers! >Chris > > > > I have sometimes wondered if Drien was named after Adrienne/Adrian Morgan, apparently a major influence on the world of Dragaera and who seems to have changed the spelling of his (her?) name in ways that make it a little ambiguous as to masculinity/femininity--but I don't know the person and hate to speculate too much. From dusty at sayersnet.com Tue Jan 6 16:24:14 2004 From: dusty at sayersnet.com (J A 'Dusty' Sayers) Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 19:24:14 -0500 Subject: Another question for Steve, re: Drien.... In-Reply-To: <200401051833.i05IXlg14609@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> References: <200401051833.i05IXlg14609@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Message-ID: <3FFB51AE.3090305@sayersnet.com> M J wrote: >From: J A 'Dusty' Sayers >Reply-To: dusty at sayersnet.com >Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 17:50:28 -0500 > > > >>Chris Olson - SunPS wrote: >> >> >> >>>If I'm recalling correctly, Drien was either a female-turned- >>>male, or a male-turned-female. >>> >>>Did the name come from Charles d'Eon de Beaumont? (I recently >>>read of d'Eon (changed from Deon), in "By the Sword", and >>>the similarity was remarkable. I had to ask.:) >>> >>> > > > >>I have sometimes wondered if Drien was named after Adrienne/Adrian >>Morgan, apparently a major influence on the world of Dragaera and >> >> >who > > >>seems to have changed the spelling of his (her?) name in ways that >> >> >make > > >>it a little ambiguous as to masculinity/femininity--but I don't >> >> >know the > > >>person and hate to speculate too much. >> >> > >Oh, hey, yeah - didn't Adrian Morgan RP as Morrolan in the game >that spawned all of this? (I do hope I'm not just making that up; >I thought that David (S, not DB) posted something along those lines >a few months back.) > >? >MJ > > > > > I think Adrian Morgan was actually the game-master or something along those lines--the originator of the whole setting, I think. -- J A Dusty Sayers Home Page http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/ Rescue the Princess http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/rescue/ 'We have it in our power to begin the world anew.' --Thomas Paine, 'Common Sense' From TimN at rcn.com Wed Jan 7 03:38:37 2004 From: TimN at rcn.com (Timothy Nelson) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 06:38:37 -0500 Subject: Characters and Cars References: <200401061318.AA251724102@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <001c01c3d512$cb39db40$d916fea9@ananda> Sethra the Younger is a Yugo, or perhaps one of those completely lame new beetles. She may kill me for saying that, but I'll be sure to be in Castle Black when she finds out... ----- Original Message ----- From: M J To: Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 4:18 PM Subject: RE: Characters and Cars From: "James Griffin" Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 10:14:03 -0800 >Sethra the Younger- the NEW Ford F150- Absolutely positively the New best >Ford truck out there. I didn't think they made that sucker in pastels. ? MJ ~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~ http://erythros.livejournal.com/ ~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~ From mtiller at ntlworld.com Wed Jan 7 04:35:50 2004 From: mtiller at ntlworld.com (Mark Tiller) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 12:35:50 -0000 Subject: Another question for Steve, re: Drien.... In-Reply-To: <3FFB51AE.3090305@sayersnet.com> Message-ID: <20040107123528.BLID26519.mta01-svc.ntlworld.com@sweetdre123rzw> -----Original Message----- From: J A 'Dusty' Sayers [mailto:dusty at sayersnet.com] Sent: 07 January 2004 00:24 To: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Cc: dragaera at dragaera.info Subject: Re: Another question for Steve, re: Drien.... >I think Adrian Morgan was actually the game-master or something along >those lines--the originator of the whole setting, I think. Hence, presumably, "Morganti" weapons. Cheers Mark From bonham15 at cox.net Wed Jan 7 08:05:09 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 10:05:09 -0600 Subject: Characters and Cars References: <200401061318.AA251724102@amish2000.com> <001c01c3d512$cb39db40$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: <000401c3d538$06b27770$33856044@user79dn2jmjai> i viewed sethra the younger as the type of car that looks fast/tough but isn't quite what it thinks it is.. say like an H2.. supposedly the toughest thing out there, but pieces rattle off it like popcorn, and the old unassuming garage tweaked cj7 could run circles around it. andy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Timothy Nelson" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 5:38 AM Subject: Re: Characters and Cars > Sethra the Younger is a Yugo, or perhaps one of those completely lame new > beetles. > She may kill me for saying that, but I'll be sure to be in Castle Black when > she finds out... > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: M J > To: > Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 4:18 PM > Subject: RE: Characters and Cars > > > > From: "James Griffin" > Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004 10:14:03 -0800 > > >Sethra the Younger- the NEW Ford F150- Absolutely positively the > New best > >Ford truck out there. > > I didn't think they made that sucker in pastels. > > ? > MJ > > ~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~ > http://erythros.livejournal.com/ > ~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~ > > > > From bonham15 at cox.net Wed Jan 7 08:05:49 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 10:05:49 -0600 Subject: Another question for Steve, re: Drien.... References: <20040107123528.BLID26519.mta01-svc.ntlworld.com@sweetdre123rzw> Message-ID: <000901c3d538$1dec82f0$33856044@user79dn2jmjai> imagine that, a game master who sucks out your soul. i had one of those in college, long long ago. andy > > >I think Adrian Morgan was actually the game-master or something along > >those lines--the originator of the whole setting, I think. > > Hence, presumably, "Morganti" weapons. > > Cheers > > Mark > > From casey at the-bat.net Thu Jan 8 12:14:24 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:14:24 -0500 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <000901c3d538$1dec82f0$33856044@user79dn2jmjai> Message-ID: On Wed Dec 31st, 2003 0:30 AM Steve blogged: > Take a package of rib steak... So, other than dinner, what do you call it? I can't afford the carbs in the rice, but it sounds tasty. Casey From juliette_torres at yahoo.com Thu Jan 8 12:19:48 2004 From: juliette_torres at yahoo.com (Juliette Torres) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 12:19:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <1073592869.24734.ezmlm@dragaera.info> Message-ID: <20040108201948.80822.qmail@web20907.mail.yahoo.com> http://www.ahwatukee.com/afn/community/articles/040107d.html -- Police have been hiding in the bushes catching speeders along the road behind my house. Some guy put up a sign warning of a speed trap, and they arrested him for it. He then spent an hour handcuffed in their car while they tried to figure out what they were citing him with. They decided on Obstructing a Government Operation, but this was thrown out two weeks later on account of that article specifically stating, Obstructing a Government Operation by Threat or Use of Physical Violence. Putting up a sign is not violent. This reminds me strongly of the passage in The Phoenix Guards (pg. 44, PB): --- "Very well," said the Captain, "you are to enforce the laws of the Empire." "And what laws are these, Captain?" asked Aerich. "Heh," said G'aereth. "Use your judgement. If it looks illegal, then it probably is." --- The really ironic thing is that now there are huge, official signs along Pecos Rd. warning of "Intense Speed Enforcement, next 7 miles." ~Juliette Torres ===== ~-~-~-~-~-~-~ "When they say that people should bring things to their relationships, I hadn't thought that meant that one person should keep a sword in her torso and that the other one should turn into a car." --Elena, on "Revolutionary Girl Utena" __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus From Randi128 at aol.com Thu Jan 8 12:27:13 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:27:13 EST Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement Message-ID: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> In a message dated 01/08/2004 3:20:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, juliette_torres at yahoo.com writes: > http://www.ahwatukee.com/afn/community/articles/040107d.html > -- Police have been hiding in the bushes catching > speeders along the road behind my house. Some guy put > up a sign warning of a speed trap, and they arrested > him for it. He then spent an hour handcuffed in their > car while they tried to figure out what they were > citing him with. They decided on Obstructing a > Government Operation, but this was thrown out two > weeks later on account of that article specifically > stating, Obstructing a Government Operation by Threat > or Use of Physical Violence. Putting up a sign is not > violent. > > This reminds me strongly of the passage in The Phoenix > Guards (pg. 44, PB): > --- > "Very well," said the Captain, "you are to enforce the > laws of the Empire." > > "And what laws are these, Captain?" asked Aerich. > > "Heh," said G'aereth. "Use your judgement. If it looks > illegal, then it probably is." > --- > > The really ironic thing is that now there are huge, > official signs along Pecos Rd. warning of "Intense > Speed Enforcement, next 7 miles." > > ~Juliette Torres > I don't know what they would charge him with, probably obstruction of justice. I'm sure theres at least one lawyer on the list who could name the specific law. The bottom line is that the man who put up the sign was aiding people who were breaking the law. If they were speeding through a residential neighboorhood, someone could be killed or injured as a result of their recklesness. John D. Barbato, OD From carla.hunt.b at oncogene.com Thu Jan 8 12:52:35 2004 From: carla.hunt.b at oncogene.com (Carla Hunt) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:52:35 -0500 Subject: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement Message-ID: not that i necessarily believe in aiding speeders, but weren't the cops doing something illegal? isn't hiding in the bushes to catch people called entrapment? that's why you usually see them sitting in plain site with their lights on. Randi128 at aol.com To: dragaera at dragaera.info 01/08/2004 03:27 cc: PM Subject: Re: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In a message dated 01/08/2004 3:20:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, juliette_torres at yahoo.com writes: > http://www.ahwatukee.com/afn/community/articles/040107d.html > -- Police have been hiding in the bushes catching > speeders along the road behind my house. Some guy put > up a sign warning of a speed trap, and they arrested > him for it. He then spent an hour handcuffed in their > car while they tried to figure out what they were > citing him with. They decided on Obstructing a > Government Operation, but this was thrown out two > weeks later on account of that article specifically > stating, Obstructing a Government Operation by Threat > or Use of Physical Violence. Putting up a sign is not > violent. > > This reminds me strongly of the passage in The Phoenix > Guards (pg. 44, PB): > --- > "Very well," said the Captain, "you are to enforce the > laws of the Empire." > > "And what laws are these, Captain?" asked Aerich. > > "Heh," said G'aereth. "Use your judgement. If it looks > illegal, then it probably is." > --- > > The really ironic thing is that now there are huge, > official signs along Pecos Rd. warning of "Intense > Speed Enforcement, next 7 miles." > > ~Juliette Torres > I don't know what they would charge him with, probably obstruction of justice. I'm sure theres at least one lawyer on the list who could name the specific law. The bottom line is that the man who put up the sign was aiding people who were breaking the law. If they were speeding through a residential neighboorhood, someone could be killed or injured as a result of their recklesness. John D. Barbato, OD From frank at exit.com Thu Jan 8 13:02:58 2004 From: frank at exit.com (Frank Mayhar) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 13:02:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> Message-ID: <200401082102.i08L2xCl040165@realtime.exit.com> Randi128 at aol.com wrote: > I don't know what they would charge him with, probably obstruction of > justice. I'm sure theres at least one lawyer on the list who could name the specific > law. The bottom line is that the man who put up the sign was aiding people who > were breaking the law. Piffle. Prove it. The sign was directed at every driver, not just those who were speeding. Maybe the guy just didn't like the way the local government chose to enhance their revenue. > If they were speeding through a residential > neighboorhood, someone could be killed or injured as a result of their recklesness. Well, yeah, _if_ they were speeding, _if_ it was a residential neighborhood and _if_ they were being reckless. Those are a lot of assumptions you're making, there. -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/ http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/ From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Thu Jan 8 13:07:30 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 13:07:30 -0800 Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> References: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> Message-ID: <5ghrvv4f1n38abipnjnb9a9362n7gpdnr2@4ax.com> On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:27:13 EST, you wrote: >I don't know what they would charge him with, probably obstruction of >justice. I'm sure theres at least one lawyer on the list who could name the specific >law. The bottom line is that the man who put up the sign was aiding people who >were breaking the law. If they were speeding through a residential >neighboorhood, someone could be killed or injured as a result of their recklesness. The problem with this argument is, if I saw a sign warning of a speed trap, I'd slow down, not speed up. So in actuality, he was simply preventing the police from having anyone to ticket, by encouraging people to follow the law. And he's arrested for this? I've heard that some police departments have taken advantage of the spread of radar detectors in a similar fashion. They place empty police cars at various changing locations, with a radar gun set in the On position inside. When a speeder hears his detector go off, he slows down. Works better than a speed bump. :-) -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From scs at di.org Thu Jan 8 13:32:54 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:32:54 -0500 Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <5ghrvv4f1n38abipnjnb9a9362n7gpdnr2@4ax.com> References: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> <5ghrvv4f1n38abipnjnb9a9362n7gpdnr2@4ax.com> Message-ID: <20040108213254.GB67306@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 01:07:30PM -0800, lazarus wrote: > I've heard that some police departments have taken advantage of the > spread of radar detectors in a similar fashion. They place empty > police cars at various changing locations, with a radar gun set in the > On position inside. When a speeder hears his detector go off, he > slows down. Works better than a speed bump. :-) There are places in Indiana where they put up "We Are Watching You" signs with outlines of helicopters, cops with a radar gun, etc. They don't actually have those things, they just have a the signs. At the time it was a standard item available from the state highway folks, no radar or helicopter purchase required. Mind you, the locals figured it out pretty quick. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From Randi128 at aol.com Thu Jan 8 13:40:07 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:40:07 EST Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement Message-ID: <97.42bdbfec.2d2f2837@aol.com> In a message dated 01/08/2004 4:03:21 PM Eastern Standard Time, frank at exit.com writes: > Piffle. Prove it. The sign was directed at every driver, not just those > who were speeding. Your just being ornery and you know it. So nah! And anyone standing on the side of the road with a sign should be taken into custody anyway. Good God Man, get a job! John D. Barbato, OD John D. Barbato, OD From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Thu Jan 8 13:47:02 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 13:47:02 -0800 Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <20040108213254.GB67306@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> <5ghrvv4f1n38abipnjnb9a9362n7gpdnr2@4ax.com> <20040108213254.GB67306@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <5sjrvvktoooqm1bs3keto5ddd48asqfvuq@4ax.com> On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 16:32:54 -0500, you wrote: >On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 01:07:30PM -0800, lazarus wrote: > >> I've heard that some police departments have taken advantage of the >> spread of radar detectors in a similar fashion. They place empty >> police cars at various changing locations, with a radar gun set in the >> On position inside. When a speeder hears his detector go off, he >> slows down. Works better than a speed bump. :-) > >There are places in Indiana where they put up "We Are Watching You" >signs with outlines of helicopters, cops with a radar gun, etc. They >don't actually have those things, they just have a the signs. At >the time it was a standard item available from the state highway folks, >no radar or helicopter purchase required. > >Mind you, the locals figured it out pretty quick. Embarrassing admission: When I was a young child, I thought those signs that said, "Speed is radar controlled" meant there were huge radar towers that literally kept the cars from exceeding the speed limit. I remember being so convinced that was true.... -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From warbi at warbi.net Thu Jan 8 17:24:34 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 17:24:34 -0800 Subject: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement Message-ID: <003201c3d64f$5840ad60$3dadfea9@warbi> Entrapment is a major weapon of police these days, just like illegal search and seizure. There have even been recent movements to do away with the Miranda rights. If they think drugs are involved, kiss your rights good-bye. warbi ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carla Hunt" To: Cc: Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 12:52 PM Subject: Re: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement > > > > > not that i necessarily believe in aiding speeders, but weren't the cops doing > something illegal? isn't hiding in the bushes to catch people called > entrapment? that's why you usually see them sitting in plain site with their > lights on. > > > > > Randi128 at aol.com > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > 01/08/2004 03:27 cc: > PM Subject: Re: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement > > > > > > > In a message dated 01/08/2004 3:20:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, > juliette_torres at yahoo.com writes: > > > > http://www.ahwatukee.com/afn/community/articles/040107d.html > > -- Police have been hiding in the bushes catching > > speeders along the road behind my house. Some guy put > > up a sign warning of a speed trap, and they arrested > > him for it. He then spent an hour handcuffed in their > > car while they tried to figure out what they were > > citing him with. They decided on Obstructing a > > Government Operation, but this was thrown out two > > weeks later on account of that article specifically > > stating, Obstructing a Government Operation by Threat > > or Use of Physical Violence. Putting up a sign is not > > violent. > > > > This reminds me strongly of the passage in The Phoenix > > Guards (pg. 44, PB): > > --- > > "Very well," said the Captain, "you are to enforce the > > laws of the Empire." > > > > "And what laws are these, Captain?" asked Aerich. > > > > "Heh," said G'aereth. "Use your judgement. If it looks > > illegal, then it probably is." > > --- > > > > The really ironic thing is that now there are huge, > > official signs along Pecos Rd. warning of "Intense > > Speed Enforcement, next 7 miles." > > > > ~Juliette Torres > > > > I don't know what they would charge him with, probably obstruction of > justice. I'm sure theres at least one lawyer on the list who could name the > specific > law. The bottom line is that the man who put up the sign was aiding people who > were breaking the law. If they were speeding through a residential > neighboorhood, someone could be killed or injured as a result of their > recklesness. > > John D. Barbato, OD > > > > > From dd-b at dd-b.net Thu Jan 8 17:50:45 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 19:50:45 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: (Casey Rousseau's message of "Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:14:24 -0500") References: Message-ID: "Casey Rousseau" writes: > On Wed Dec 31st, 2003 0:30 AM Steve blogged: > >> Take a package of rib steak... > > So, other than dinner, what do you call it? I can't afford the carbs in the > rice, but it sounds tasty. I'm still wondering just what causes the meat to cook. The peppers, maybe? -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Thu Jan 8 17:52:02 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 19:52:02 -0600 Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> (Randi128@aol.com's message of "Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:27:13 EST") References: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> Message-ID: Randi128 at aol.com writes: > The bottom line is that the man who put up the sign was aiding people who > were breaking the law. Was he? Or was he warning them *not* to break the law? -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From jtoth at megrez.org Thu Jan 8 18:20:11 2004 From: jtoth at megrez.org (Jim Toth) Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 21:20:11 -0500 Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <5sjrvvktoooqm1bs3keto5ddd48asqfvuq@4ax.com> References: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> <5ghrvv4f1n38abipnjnb9a9362n7gpdnr2@4ax.com> <20040108213254.GB67306@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> <5sjrvvktoooqm1bs3keto5ddd48asqfvuq@4ax.com> Message-ID: <20040109022011.GA2040@castor.megrez.org> On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 01:47:02PM -0800, lazarus (lazarus33pjf at cox.net) said: > Embarrassing admission: When I was a young child, I thought those > signs that said, "Speed is radar controlled" meant there were huge > radar towers that literally kept the cars from exceeding the speed > limit. > > I remember being so convinced that was true.... Signs that read "Speed limits enforced by aircraft" bring to my mind the image of pilots in airplanes searching for speeding vehicles and firing air-to-ground missiles at any such miscreants that they find. -- Jim Toth jtoth at megrez.org From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Jan 8 18:26:20 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 18:26:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <20040109022011.GA2040@castor.megrez.org> References: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> <5ghrvv4f1n38abipnjnb9a9362n7gpdnr2@4ax.com> <20040108213254.GB67306@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> <5sjrvvktoooqm1bs3keto5ddd48asqfvuq@4ax.com> <20040109022011.GA2040@castor.megrez.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Jim Toth wrote: > Signs that read "Speed limits enforced by aircraft" bring to my mind > the image of pilots in airplanes searching for speeding vehicles and > firing air-to-ground missiles at any such miscreants that they find. Are the skies above Adrilankha filled with young sorcerers in mock dogfights using magical laser beams? From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Fri Jan 9 01:48:25 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 01:48:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: <200401090948.i099mPk17779@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> From: "David Dyer-Bennet" >"Casey Rousseau" writes: > >> On Wed Dec 31st, 2003 0:30 AM Steve blogged: >> >>> Take a package of rib steak... >> >> So, other than dinner, what do you call it? I can't afford the carbs in the >> rice, but it sounds tasty. > >I'm still wondering just what causes the meat to cook. The peppers, >maybe? It could possibly be, you know, the heat. The recipe does specify that you take the meat and sautee it. I thought it was a little ironic that we get a recipe involving beef just as the whole "Mad Cow" thing breaks. I wonder how it would go if you substituted chicken or pork? There are a whole bunch of Thai dishes (many of them spicy, as this one is) that don't require a specific meat but can be made with whatever meat you like. -- David Goldfarb <*>| "Life is a simile." goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Terry Carr From brian.vanskyock at zimmer.com Fri Jan 9 05:30:37 2004 From: brian.vanskyock at zimmer.com (Brian Vanskyock) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 08:30:37 -0500 Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement References: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> <5ghrvv4f1n38abipnjnb9a9362n7gpdnr2@4ax.com> <20040108213254.GB67306@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <3FFEACFD.AF72EA15@zimmer.com> cool another Indiana resident yea, I have seen the signs - I just figured that the people watching me were getting bolder brian (fort wayne) Steve Simmons wrote: > On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 01:07:30PM -0800, lazarus wrote: > > > I've heard that some police departments have taken advantage of the > > spread of radar detectors in a similar fashion. They place empty > > police cars at various changing locations, with a radar gun set in the > > On position inside. When a speeder hears his detector go off, he > > slows down. Works better than a speed bump. :-) > > There are places in Indiana where they put up "We Are Watching You" > signs with outlines of helicopters, cops with a radar gun, etc. They > don't actually have those things, they just have a the signs. At > the time it was a standard item available from the state highway folks, > no radar or helicopter purchase required. > > Mind you, the locals figured it out pretty quick. > -- > "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when > you're old and cynical." > -me From bio_phy at hotmail.com Fri Jan 9 06:34:36 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 08:34:36 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: Is there a Mad Cow "thing", or is this an isolated incident? Thus far, it appears to be the latter. I fail to see the value of inventing a crisis that doesn't exist. (I'm trying the recipe for tomorrow's dinner, just in time to watch the Titans and the Patriots play, a tune-up for the big game of this weekend for Cheeseheads, Packers at Eagles.) johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >I thought it was a little ironic that we get a recipe involving >beef just as the whole "Mad Cow" thing breaks. I wonder how it would >go if you substituted chicken or pork? There are a whole bunch of >Thai dishes (many of them spicy, as this one is) that don't require >a specific meat but can be made with whatever meat you like. > >-- > David Goldfarb <*>| "Life is a simile." >goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | >goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Terry Carr _________________________________________________________________ Get reliable dial-up Internet access now with our limited-time introductory offer. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup From Randi128 at aol.com Fri Jan 9 06:55:09 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 09:55:09 -0500 Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement Message-ID: <67B3D412.31EF54CB.007F4CFD@aol.com> In a message dated 1/8/2004 8:52:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, dd-b at dd-b.net writes: > Randi128 at aol.com writes: > > > The bottom line is that the man who put up the sign was > aiding people who > > were breaking the law. > > Was he? Or was he warning them *not* to break the law? > -- > David Dyer-Bennet, Ha, ha devil's advocate. Please see my last reply about people who stand on the side of the road with signs, besides, I already admitted defeat on this argument. I believe that he was breaking the law, but that's my opinion and there are many valid arguments against this opinion. These valid arguments will ultimately fail to convince me so it's an exercise in futility to argue it further. I'm not one of those people who goes on and on about a subject after it should have been dropped. I know when to shut up and admit defeat. I'm just going to go gently into that good night, and you won't hear another peep out of me. No siree, I won't keep going until you want to pull your hair out by the roots and yell SHUT UP!!!! You know, this reminds me of the time that ............... John D. Barbato, OD From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Jan 9 07:00:53 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 07:00:53 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 08:34:36 -0600, you wrote: >Is there a Mad Cow "thing", or is this an isolated incident? Thus far, it >appears to be the latter. I kind of hope there is, simply to save me some money. I can't wait for the price of beef to drop. On the other hand, I feel for the small ranchers that are going to get hurt by the hysteria over this. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From TimN at rcn.com Fri Jan 9 07:08:49 2004 From: TimN at rcn.com (Timothy Nelson) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 10:08:49 -0500 Subject: Steve's Web Log References: Message-ID: <005601c3d6c2$95278320$d916fea9@ananda> Mad cow (BSE) and its human counterpart are scary simply because of the method of transfer. You can reduce a piece of meat to cinders and it will still be able to infect someone, just via the denatured proteins. No pathogen is involved -- to me, that's VERY frightening. Then again, it is possible that this disease (despite the small number of cases, its interesting) will prompt more research into stem cell research...you never know. :) - Tim From bio_phy at hotmail.com Fri Jan 9 07:08:20 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 09:08:20 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: Local talk show host Mark Belling observed recently that this incident will be a boon in one practical way: people who normally can't afford steak will suddenly be able to live the high life as beef prices plummet. For me, I can't wait to try this cool new recipe... johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >I kind of hope there is, simply to save me some money. I can't wait >for the price of beef to drop. > >On the other hand, I feel for the small ranchers that are going to get >hurt by the hysteria over this. > > >-- > >laz _________________________________________________________________ Worried about inbox overload? Get MSN Extra Storage now! http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es From lister at insaneninjahero.com Fri Jan 9 07:41:45 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 07:41:45 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <005601c3d6c2$95278320$d916fea9@ananda> References: <005601c3d6c2$95278320$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: <3FFECBB9.8040808@insaneninjahero.com> The only way you're going to catch BSE is if you eat an infected cow's brain. Beef is perfectly safe. Here, go read Eric, he'll tell you. He's a former FDA meat inspector and is currently the head at the meat packing plant he works at of saftey or inspections or something. Maybe safety means not slipping and falling into the meat packing machines. He also provides a plausible infection vector for WA. http://www.1ryderfakin.com/ERIC14.htm Also, Eric suggests that beef prices are going to go up, rather than down, though as a side-effect rather than direct result. You know what is even freakier? My wife is from the town where it happened. She isn't surprised that there are wierdos there who eat cow brains. Kisc Timothy Nelson wrote: > Mad cow (BSE) and its human counterpart are scary simply because of the > method of transfer. You can reduce a piece of meat to cinders and it will > still be able to infect someone, just via the denatured proteins. No > pathogen is involved -- to me, that's VERY frightening. > > Then again, it is possible that this disease (despite the small number of > cases, its interesting) will prompt more research into stem cell > research...you never know. :) > > - Tim > > > From warbi at warbi.net Fri Jan 9 09:53:42 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 09:53:42 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: <002101c3d6d9$9f7ca820$3dadfea9@warbi> I live less than 20 miles from the ranch who had the cow- yes, it will hurt them. Apparently they were just in the process of expanding their dairy and renovating their home- ouch! warbi ----- Original Message ----- From: "lazarus" To: Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 7:00 AM Subject: Re: Steve's Web Log On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 08:34:36 -0600, you wrote: >Is there a Mad Cow "thing", or is this an isolated incident? Thus far, it >appears to be the latter. I kind of hope there is, simply to save me some money. I can't wait for the price of beef to drop. On the other hand, I feel for the small ranchers that are going to get hurt by the hysteria over this. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From dd-b at dd-b.net Fri Jan 9 10:08:29 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:08:29 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <200401090948.i099mPk17779@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> (David Goldfarb's message of "Fri, 9 Jan 2004 01:48:25 -0800 (PST)") References: <200401090948.i099mPk17779@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: David Goldfarb writes: > I thought it was a little ironic that we get a recipe involving > beef just as the whole "Mad Cow" thing breaks. Beef prices are down. I bought a slab of round steak for $2.49 a pound the other day. Do remember that, so far as we know at the moment, BSE has killed fewer humans in all of history than salmonella from chicken kills in a year. And that people have died from bacteria on green onions, too. The recipe I used the first bit of the round steak for also had green onions in it, and I actually worried about that part more. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Fri Jan 9 10:11:35 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:11:35 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <3FFECBB9.8040808@insaneninjahero.com> (Derrill Guilbert's message of "Fri, 09 Jan 2004 07:41:45 -0800") References: <005601c3d6c2$95278320$d916fea9@ananda> <3FFECBB9.8040808@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert writes: > The only way you're going to catch BSE is if you eat an infected cow's > brain. Beef is perfectly safe. Or spinal cord. Automated stripping of meat from the spine often gets bits of the nerves, too. I would regard any ground beef product as a potential vector. Inspectors reports say they often find bits of CNS tissue on solid cuts of meat, too. You may remember that over 100 people in Britain *did* catch vCJD, without straightforwardly eating a cow's brain. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Jan 9 12:02:24 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:02:24 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: References: <005601c3d6c2$95278320$d916fea9@ananda> <3FFECBB9.8040808@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:11:35 -0600, you wrote: >Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert writes: > >> The only way you're going to catch BSE is if you eat an infected cow's >> brain. Beef is perfectly safe. > >Or spinal cord. > >Automated stripping of meat from the spine often gets bits of the >nerves, too. I would regard any ground beef product as a potential >vector. > >Inspectors reports say they often find bits of CNS tissue on solid >cuts of meat, too. > >You may remember that over 100 people in Britain *did* catch vCJD, >without straightforwardly eating a cow's brain. But there is a possibility of the prions beings transmitted all sorts of ways, including, bizarrely enough, through vegetables, if the fertilization process is done (im)properly. This is still a seriously fuzzy issue, and I'd prefer to see a lot more research and a lot less panic. As it is, we have the Vegans on one side screaming "We told you so!" and claiming the very smell of meat will kill, and on the other side is the Beef Council claiming that raw meat is the healthiest thing in the world. (The previous sentence contained hyperbole, obviously.) It really doesn't help that the USDA's Chief of Staff is a former lobbyist for the beef industry, I think. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Jan 9 12:03:16 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:03:16 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: References: <200401090948.i099mPk17779@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <372uvvo4oi12ulh72u2hbduo7jsqqgn8mt@4ax.com> On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:08:29 -0600, you wrote: >David Goldfarb writes: > >> I thought it was a little ironic that we get a recipe involving >> beef just as the whole "Mad Cow" thing breaks. > >Beef prices are down. I bought a slab of round steak for $2.49 a >pound the other day. > >Do remember that, so far as we know at the moment, BSE has killed >fewer humans in all of history than salmonella from chicken kills in a >year. > >And that people have died from bacteria on green onions, too. The >recipe I used the first bit of the round steak for also had green >onions in it, and I actually worried about that part more. And various toxic molds, etc., are also deadly killers. The panic is likely to cause more economic damage than anything else. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From warbi at warbi.net Fri Jan 9 13:58:35 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 13:58:35 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: <00a101c3d6fb$bbff1e20$3dadfea9@warbi> Ha! I had a Vegan friend that got food poisoning not once, but twice from Vegan restaurants! warbi ----- Original Message ----- From: "lazarus" To: Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 12:02 PM Subject: Re: Steve's Web Log On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:11:35 -0600, you wrote: >Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert writes: > >> The only way you're going to catch BSE is if you eat an infected cow's >> brain. Beef is perfectly safe. > >Or spinal cord. > >Automated stripping of meat from the spine often gets bits of the >nerves, too. I would regard any ground beef product as a potential >vector. > >Inspectors reports say they often find bits of CNS tissue on solid >cuts of meat, too. > >You may remember that over 100 people in Britain *did* catch vCJD, >without straightforwardly eating a cow's brain. But there is a possibility of the prions beings transmitted all sorts of ways, including, bizarrely enough, through vegetables, if the fertilization process is done (im)properly. This is still a seriously fuzzy issue, and I'd prefer to see a lot more research and a lot less panic. As it is, we have the Vegans on one side screaming "We told you so!" and claiming the very smell of meat will kill, and on the other side is the Beef Council claiming that raw meat is the healthiest thing in the world. (The previous sentence contained hyperbole, obviously.) It really doesn't help that the USDA's Chief of Staff is a former lobbyist for the beef industry, I think. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From mklahn at mac.com Fri Jan 9 12:24:20 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:24:20 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <00a101c3d6fb$bbff1e20$3dadfea9@warbi> References: <00a101c3d6fb$bbff1e20$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: On Jan 9, 2004, at 15:58 , warbi wrote: > Ha! I had a Vegan friend that got food poisoning not once, but > twice from > Vegan restaurants! warbi > While this is ironic, I'd bet that there are fewer vegans who get food poisoning than non-vegans. Lettuce, fruits and vegetables can be vectors for e. coli, hepatitis, etc. but there's a lot more bad chicken or dairy going around than those things from veggies. And, laughing at this in a triumphant sort of way is more than a little snotty. I feel sorry for the guy that I don't even know. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From bio_phy at hotmail.com Fri Jan 9 12:42:15 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 14:42:15 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: It's entirely normal to be amused at the irony. This should not be confused for laughing at the person. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >> Ha! I had a Vegan friend that got food poisoning not once, but twice >>from >>Vegan restaurants! warbi >> >And, laughing at this in a triumphant sort of way is more than a little >snotty. I feel sorry for the guy that I don't even know. _________________________________________________________________ Worried about inbox overload? Get MSN Extra Storage now! http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Fri Jan 9 12:47:55 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 12:47:55 -0800 Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement References: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> <5ghrvv4f1n38abipnjnb9a9362n7gpdnr2@4ax.com> Message-ID: <00bc01c3d6f1$dc132350$6701a8c0@DELL1> < Message-ID: <20040109211223.89824.qmail@web20308.mail.yahoo.com> Mad Cow Disease tears it. As a dedicated omnivore I must ask that the "plan" be moved into the next phase. Begin eating the vegetarians now! We can no longer wait for the long term evolutionary consequences of voluntarily placing oneself on a lower rung of the food chain to manifest. We, the meat-eaters, must act to ensure a stable food supply. Cheers, John --- lazarus wrote: > On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:11:35 -0600, you wrote: > > >Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert > writes: > > > >> The only way you're going to catch BSE is if you > eat an infected cow's > >> brain. Beef is perfectly safe. > > > >Or spinal cord. > > > >Automated stripping of meat from the spine often > gets bits of the > >nerves, too. I would regard any ground beef > product as a potential > >vector. > > > >Inspectors reports say they often find bits of CNS > tissue on solid > >cuts of meat, too. > > > >You may remember that over 100 people in Britain > *did* catch vCJD, > >without straightforwardly eating a cow's brain. > > But there is a possibility of the prions beings > transmitted all sorts > of ways, including, bizarrely enough, through > vegetables, if the > fertilization process is done (im)properly. > > This is still a seriously fuzzy issue, and I'd > prefer to see a lot > more research and a lot less panic. As it is, we > have the Vegans on > one side screaming "We told you so!" and claiming > the very smell of > meat will kill, and on the other side is the Beef > Council claiming > that raw meat is the healthiest thing in the world. > (The previous > sentence contained hyperbole, obviously.) > > It really doesn't help that the USDA's Chief of > Staff is a former > lobbyist for the beef industry, I think. > > > -- > > laz > > I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. > Ask me about franchise opportunities! __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus From lydy at demesne.com Fri Jan 9 13:25:59 2004 From: lydy at demesne.com (Lydia Nickerson) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 15:25:59 -0600 Subject: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <003201c3d64f$5840ad60$3dadfea9@warbi> References: <003201c3d64f$5840ad60$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040109145610.026aaeb0@gw.dd-b.net> At 05:24 PM 1/8/04 -0800, warbi wrote: > Entrapment is a major weapon of police these days, just like illegal >search and seizure. There have even been recent movements to do away with >the Miranda rights. If they think drugs are involved, kiss your rights >good-bye. To quote Bruce Schneier, "Who ever knew that 'drugs' was the root password to the Constitution." Insofar as they still maintain any semblance of respecting the laws against entrapment, entrapment means that the law enforcement officer specifically invites you to commit a crime, which you then commit. One of their best ways around this one, where drugs are concerned, is to set up a buy at one meeting. At the next, you show up and they ask you, "So, what's the deal?" You say, "Like I said, 100 hits, 50 bucks. Got the money?" The actual question, "What's the deal?" is merely asking for information. Entrapment would be, "Can you sell me a 100 hits?" It is no longer illegal to say that _if the buy doesn't go down at that time_. Hiding behind a bush isn't entrapment. There is no specific invitation to speed. Even by the older, stricter rules of entrapment, it doesn't qualify. That there is no cop is not an invitation to commit a crime. From mklahn at mac.com Fri Jan 9 13:30:10 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 15:30:10 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <20040109211223.89824.qmail@web20308.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040109211223.89824.qmail@web20308.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <008674D8-42EB-11D8-9FA9-000393D1260C@mac.com> I recommend that you start with the HIV infected vegetarians. Really, though, you need to think about what "lower rung of the food chain" means in the context of humans. Are you implying that becoming a vegetarian means that we're starting to be eaten by other animals? How does that work, exactly? I'm not trying to take you too literally, but really, you walked into that one. To the other responder, I agree: you can laugh at the irony without laughing at the person, you're right. I guess, as a vegan, I'm getting a little touchy about this. I really think that people make fun of vegetarians & vegans because a lot of them are "holier-than-thou". But, really, I get a lot more flack from meat eaters now as a vegan than I EVER got when I ate meat from vegetarians. You should be on the receiving end of some of the looks I get just because I opt out of eating meat, which affects absolutely no one but myself. I don't preach or advocate veganism (well, at least without someone asking me about whether they should become vegan), and don't expect other people to change their lifestyles in any way. But, if I tell some people I'm vegan, they seem to think I'm the anti-christ. Which, maybe I am. :) Matthew Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. On Jan 9, 2004, at 15:12 , John Almasi wrote: > Mad Cow Disease tears it. As a dedicated omnivore I > must ask that the "plan" be moved into the next phase. > Begin eating the vegetarians now! We can no longer > wait for the long term evolutionary consequences of > voluntarily placing oneself on a lower rung of the > food chain to manifest. We, the meat-eaters, must act > to ensure a stable food supply. > > Cheers, > John > --- lazarus wrote: >> On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 12:11:35 -0600, you wrote: >> >>> Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert >> writes: >>> >>>> The only way you're going to catch BSE is if you >> eat an infected cow's >>>> brain. Beef is perfectly safe. >>> >>> Or spinal cord. >>> >>> Automated stripping of meat from the spine often >> gets bits of the >>> nerves, too. I would regard any ground beef >> product as a potential >>> vector. >>> >>> Inspectors reports say they often find bits of CNS >> tissue on solid >>> cuts of meat, too. >>> >>> You may remember that over 100 people in Britain >> *did* catch vCJD, >>> without straightforwardly eating a cow's brain. >> >> But there is a possibility of the prions beings >> transmitted all sorts >> of ways, including, bizarrely enough, through >> vegetables, if the >> fertilization process is done (im)properly. >> >> This is still a seriously fuzzy issue, and I'd >> prefer to see a lot >> more research and a lot less panic. As it is, we >> have the Vegans on >> one side screaming "We told you so!" and claiming >> the very smell of >> meat will kill, and on the other side is the Beef >> Council claiming >> that raw meat is the healthiest thing in the world. >> (The previous >> sentence contained hyperbole, obviously.) >> >> It really doesn't help that the USDA's Chief of >> Staff is a former >> lobbyist for the beef industry, I think. >> >> >> -- >> >> laz >> >> I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. >> Ask me about franchise opportunities! > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes > http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus > -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Jan 9 14:20:11 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 14:20:11 -0800 Subject: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <6.0.1.1.0.20040109145610.026aaeb0@gw.dd-b.net> References: <003201c3d64f$5840ad60$3dadfea9@warbi> <6.0.1.1.0.20040109145610.026aaeb0@gw.dd-b.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 15:25:59 -0600, you wrote: >At 05:24 PM 1/8/04 -0800, warbi wrote: >> Entrapment is a major weapon of police these days, just like illegal >>search and seizure. There have even been recent movements to do away with >>the Miranda rights. If they think drugs are involved, kiss your rights >>good-bye. > > >To quote Bruce Schneier, "Who ever knew that 'drugs' was the root password >to the Constitution." They've changed that, now. It's all about "terrorism" rather than drugs. Granted, drugs is still bad, but terrorism is the big bugaboo these days. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Jan 9 14:26:38 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 14:26:38 -0800 Subject: mad cow and civil behaviour (was Re: Steve's Web Log) In-Reply-To: <008674D8-42EB-11D8-9FA9-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <20040109211223.89824.qmail@web20308.mail.yahoo.com> <008674D8-42EB-11D8-9FA9-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <7aauvvsvif923k0vf7u20d5iu9gm5k2c1l@4ax.com> On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 15:30:10 -0600, you wrote: >To the other responder, I agree: you can laugh at the irony without >laughing at the person, you're right. I guess, as a vegan, I'm getting >a little touchy about this. I really think that people make fun of >vegetarians & vegans because a lot of them are "holier-than-thou". But, >really, I get a lot more flack from meat eaters now as a vegan than I >EVER got when I ate meat from vegetarians. You should be on the >receiving end of some of the looks I get just because I opt out of >eating meat, which affects absolutely no one but myself. I don't preach >or advocate veganism (well, at least without someone asking me about >whether they should become vegan), and don't expect other people to >change their lifestyles in any way. But, if I tell some people I'm >vegan, they seem to think I'm the anti-christ. Which, maybe I am. :) What you're running into is guilt by association. Just as I, as a liberal, am "represented" by extreme fringes, regardless of whether I agree with them or not, and all their behaviour, and just as the religious are often "represented" in public consciousness by the extreme fringes of their position, so you, as a vegan, are being represented by the extremists who hold your position. You may be, and probably are, an extremely polite vegan who has simply made a lifestyle choice for yourself. Unfortunately, some vegans have become fanatical about it, and decided to offend everyone they come near who is not a vegan. Every single belief has people who are an embarrassment, I am sure, and, sadly, those of us who behave in a civilised manner are stuck having to defend the behaviour of people whose positions we may hold, although their actions we do not approve of. It's the difference between that nice Christian couple next door, and those lunatics who keep throwing Bibles through my front window and screaming at me I'm going to Hell. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 9 14:37:01 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 14:37:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <008674D8-42EB-11D8-9FA9-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <20040109211223.89824.qmail@web20308.mail.yahoo.com> <008674D8-42EB-11D8-9FA9-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: > You should be on the receiving end of some of the looks I get just > because I opt out of eating meat, which affects absolutely no one but > myself. I applaud your choice, which positively affects the ruck of mankind. On the other hand, it's a pain trying to find a restaurant if one's circle includes people who won't eat seafood, people who won't eat meat, people on the Atkins diet, people allergic to beef or peanuts or ..., people who won't eat anything cold or weird or processed or ... From Hereward at rogers.com Fri Jan 9 14:41:11 2004 From: Hereward at rogers.com (Gary Russell) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 17:41:11 -0500 Subject: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement References: <003201c3d64f$5840ad60$3dadfea9@warbi> <6.0.1.1.0.20040109145610.026aaeb0@gw.dd-b.net> Message-ID: <005b01c3d701$ae512b00$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Speeding isn't a crime, it is a quasi-criminal act governed by regulation, unless y'all have started lethally injecting jaywalkers down thar. I'm not familiar with your law on it, but we call it an offence against a regulatory act. It's a bit over the top to call something you get a ticket for a crime. GJR pinko canuck > Hiding behind a bush isn't entrapment. There is no specific invitation to > speed. Even by the older, stricter rules of entrapment, it doesn't > qualify. That there is no cop is not an invitation to commit a crime. > From warbi at warbi.net Fri Jan 9 16:31:45 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 16:31:45 -0800 Subject: Fw: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement Message-ID: <0b1b01c3d711$2158f600$3dadfea9@warbi> What, Laz, you haven't seen the new ads?!? If you do drugs, you support terrorism- or you kill your brother or something. I just kind of threw the drug thing in at the end. It really goes for anything. Here are a few links about how intrusive the government and LE has become. I especially liked the one about the flight simulator. warbi http://news.com.com/2100-7352_3-5137344.html?tag=nefd_top http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/34776.html http://www.prisonplanet.com/010804enemycombatants.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "lazarus" To: Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 2:20 PM Subject: Re: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 15:25:59 -0600, you wrote: >At 05:24 PM 1/8/04 -0800, warbi wrote: >> Entrapment is a major weapon of police these days, just like illegal >>search and seizure. There have even been recent movements to do away with >>the Miranda rights. If they think drugs are involved, kiss your rights >>good-bye. > > >To quote Bruce Schneier, "Who ever knew that 'drugs' was the root password >to the Constitution." They've changed that, now. It's all about "terrorism" rather than drugs. Granted, drugs is still bad, but terrorism is the big bugaboo these days. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Jan 9 14:42:48 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 14:42:48 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: References: <20040109211223.89824.qmail@web20308.mail.yahoo.com> <008674D8-42EB-11D8-9FA9-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <4fbuvv0fjtr8l37njfh5d4lftcns1n531u@4ax.com> On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 14:37:01 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >On the other hand, it's a pain trying to find a restaurant if one's circle >includes people who won't eat seafood, people who won't eat meat, people >on the Atkins diet, people allergic to beef or peanuts or ..., people who >won't eat anything cold or weird or processed or ... As an Atkins person, I'd have to say too many of my fellow Atkins followers need to chill out. He says repeatedly you don't have to count every single carb. If you go over one day, fine, go under for a few. If you go out to a restaurant, have fun, then go back to your normal eating style when you get home. I'm a gastronaut when I go out. I'll try anything twice, if it won't kill me. You never know when you're going to run across something neat. I have never understood fussy eaters. Folks with allergies I just feel sorry for. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Jan 9 14:45:59 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 14:45:59 -0800 Subject: Fw: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <0b1b01c3d711$2158f600$3dadfea9@warbi> References: <0b1b01c3d711$2158f600$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: <5nbuvv8pnkc24h4jmkni6oebbrkjijk67n@4ax.com> On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 16:31:45 -0800, you wrote: > What, Laz, you haven't seen the new ads?!? If you do drugs, you support >terrorism- or you kill your brother or something. I just kind of threw the >drug thing in at the end. It really goes for anything. Here are a few >links about how intrusive the government and LE has become. I especially >liked the one about the flight simulator. warbi > >http://news.com.com/2100-7352_3-5137344.html?tag=nefd_top > >http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/34776.html > >http://www.prisonplanet.com/010804enemycombatants.html Yeah, I love those. Sadly, though, I think we're drifting dangerously close to politics, which time has shown is a Bad Thing on the list here. Dammit, Sethra needs to come out, and quick! -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From warbi at warbi.net Fri Jan 9 16:42:31 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 16:42:31 -0800 Subject: Sethra Message-ID: <0b3601c3d712$a2bec3e0$3dadfea9@warbi> "Dammit, Sethra needs to come out, and quick!" Yeah, but I still haven't located my copy of LoCB!!! Moving can be a hassle in some ways! warbi From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 9 14:55:29 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 14:55:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sethra In-Reply-To: <0b3601c3d712$a2bec3e0$3dadfea9@warbi> References: <0b3601c3d712$a2bec3e0$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, laz wrote: > "Dammit, Sethra needs to come out, and quick!" We could do a lot more work on LoCB in my opinion. I haven't written much about it since my basic response was, "That was fun", plus I'm supposed to be looking for a job... From casey at the-bat.net Fri Jan 9 15:11:48 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 18:11:48 -0500 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Philip Hart wrote: > On the other hand, it's a pain trying to find a restaurant if > one's circle includes people who won't eat seafood, people > who won't eat meat, people on the Atkins diet, people > allergic to beef or peanuts or ..., people who won't eat > anything cold or weird or processed or ... :) Sounds like my house. For a while the challenge was making more than one element of a meal that at least three of us would eat. My wife was following a diabetic regimin, my daughter has a three-year-old's natural suspicion of any new food, I am on Atkins and my sister-in-law was the only "normal" one. When my vegetarian cousin stayed for dinner, it got tough. Let's see, Pam and Kate both like red beans and rice, Sarah and Elizabeth can eat mac and cheese, Kate and I will have mushroom cheese burgers, Pam and Elizabeth can supplement with tofu, and Sarah can have the last of the leftover chicken. We will all eat brocoli and the girls can have bread if they want it. From lydy at demesne.com Fri Jan 9 15:12:24 2004 From: lydy at demesne.com (Lydia Nickerson) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 17:12:24 -0600 Subject: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement In-Reply-To: References: <003201c3d64f$5840ad60$3dadfea9@warbi> <6.0.1.1.0.20040109145610.026aaeb0@gw.dd-b.net> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040109171152.026c4120@gw.dd-b.net> At 02:20 PM 1/9/04 -0800, lazarus wrote: >On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 15:25:59 -0600, you wrote: > > >At 05:24 PM 1/8/04 -0800, warbi wrote: > >> Entrapment is a major weapon of police these days, just like illegal > >>search and seizure. There have even been recent movements to do away with > >>the Miranda rights. If they think drugs are involved, kiss your rights > >>good-bye. > > > > > >To quote Bruce Schneier, "Who ever knew that 'drugs' was the root password > >to the Constitution." > >They've changed that, now. It's all about "terrorism" rather than >drugs. Granted, drugs is still bad, but terrorism is the big bugaboo >these days. Well, the security experts do recommend that you change your password regularly. From lydy at demesne.com Fri Jan 9 15:15:19 2004 From: lydy at demesne.com (Lydia Nickerson) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 17:15:19 -0600 Subject: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <005b01c3d701$ae512b00$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers .com> References: <003201c3d64f$5840ad60$3dadfea9@warbi> <6.0.1.1.0.20040109145610.026aaeb0@gw.dd-b.net> <005b01c3d701$ae512b00$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040109171318.026c4730@gw.dd-b.net> At 05:41 PM 1/9/04 -0500, Gary Russell wrote: >Speeding isn't a crime, it is a quasi-criminal act governed by regulation, >unless y'all have started lethally injecting jaywalkers down thar. I'm not >familiar with your law on it, but we call it an offence against a regulatory >act. It's a bit over the top to call something you get a ticket for a crime. 'Round here, you can end up in jail for not paying your tickets. Of course, if speeding isn't a crime, then there isn't any possibility of entrapment. I'm not sure you're right about it not being a crime, though. It's not a felony (usually), but it's not speed limits are not just regulations, if I understand correctly. From casey at the-bat.net Fri Jan 9 15:17:45 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 18:17:45 -0500 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <4fbuvv0fjtr8l37njfh5d4lftcns1n531u@4ax.com> Message-ID: Lazarus wrote: > Folks with allergies I just feel sorry for. Yep, my standard response to the question "Do you have any food allergies?" was "Alergic? To Food!? How sad!" Then again, perhaps that's why I got to the point where I needed to try Atkins. :) Casey From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Fri Jan 9 15:47:31 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 15:47:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sethra Message-ID: <200401092347.i09NlVg24114@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> > On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, laz wrote: > > > "Dammit, Sethra needs to come out, and quick!" So, Sethra and Kiera walk into Valabar's.... > Philip Hart wrote: > We could do a lot more work on LoCB in my opinion. I haven't written > much about it since my basic response was, "That was fun", plus I'm > supposed to be looking for a job... I can agree to that. Give me another reason to read it again. :) And how dare you take time away from this list to look for a job! Chris "Life is the nightmare that leaves its mark upon you in order to prove that it is, in fact, real." -Thomas Ligotti- 'The Sect of the Idiot' From umbraenoctis at hotmail.com Fri Jan 9 22:15:12 2004 From: umbraenoctis at hotmail.com (James Griffin) Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:15:12 -0800 Subject: Sethra Message-ID: >From: Chris Olson - SunPS >Reply-To: Chris Olson - SunPS >To: dragaera at dragaera.info, philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU >Subject: Re: Sethra >Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 15:47:31 -0800 (PST) > > > On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, laz wrote: > > > > > "Dammit, Sethra needs to come out, and quick!" > >So, Sethra and Kiera walk into Valabar's.... "We are Two of One. Resistance is fultile. All plasma will be assimilated. It's been stolen? Already?" James Griffin, Still Another Vlad faN I'm sure you can come up with vastly more improved than the aforegoing, but SOMEONe has to start. > > Philip Hart wrote: > > We could do a lot more work on LoCB in my opinion. I haven't written > > much about it since my basic response was, "That was fun", plus I'm > > supposed to be looking for a job... > >I can agree to that. Give me another reason to read it again. :) > >And how dare you take time away from this list to look for >a job! > > >Chris >"Life is the nightmare that leaves its mark upon you >in order to prove that it is, in fact, real." > -Thomas Ligotti- 'The Sect of the Idiot' > > _________________________________________________________________ Get a FREE online virus check for your PC here, from McAfee. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From bio_phy at hotmail.com Sat Jan 10 11:12:20 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:12:20 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: I really should do something. I've been looking at Atkins, but *that* just seems like too much work. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >:) Sounds like my house. For a while the challenge was making more than >one element of a meal that at least three of us would eat. _________________________________________________________________ Learn how to choose, serve, and enjoy wine at Wine @ MSN. http://wine.msn.com/ From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Sat Jan 10 12:21:31 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 12:21:31 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:12:20 -0600, you wrote: >I really should do something. I've been looking at Atkins, but *that* just >seems like too much work. If you only need to lose a few pounds, the cheating way to do Atkins is to cut out the major portions of carbs from your diet. For instance, I usually don't gain any weight at all if I simply go to diet sodas. (I have to use Diet Rite or Hansen's Diet, since I'm violently allergic to Nutrasweet). 2 litres of Coke a day was packing the poundage on me. Then look at dropping the bags of chips and stuff and going to better carbs, like fruit or my favourite, jicama. Just cutting out the excess carbs can actually bring down a bit of weight. The whole programme is really only necessary if you need to do some serious weight loss. I need to go back on it. I lost 65 pounds in about 4 months, but put it back on when I dropped off the programme altogether. Got custody of my 12 year old daughter, and suddenly there's dry cereal in the house, which is my arch-nemesis. I found it easier to quit smoking than to stay away from Cheerios and Lucky Charms. The dry cereal even overcomes the diet soda regimen. Evil Cereal. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From holyconelia at hotmail.com Sat Jan 10 14:00:05 2004 From: holyconelia at hotmail.com (william wheeler) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 14:00:05 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: Americans are fat! And while it appears that each week there are new diets and new fingers eager to point blame towards restaurants, food products or the Internet. It?s important for us to rememb er that nutrition is a relatively new science. New research developments change the conventional wisdom, and can force the food industry to adjust their processing techniques or ingredients. The truth is that there are certain ingredients that are being used in our everyday foods that may well be culpable in the ?fat war.? One such ingredient that appears to be adding more inches to our waistline than is necessary is high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is processed from hydrolyzed corn starch (so it?s not completely natural) and contains a high level of fructose (which is naturally occurring in fruits and honey) and a simple sugar carbohydrate, just like sucrose. It is about 75% sweeter than sucrose, less expensiv e than sugar, and mixes well in many foods. Food manufacturers (especially soda manufacturers) began using HFCS widely in the early 1970s to save money, and it was thought of as a revolutionary advance in food science because of its stability and usefullness in a variety of foods. According to the Corn Refiners Association, HFCS is made up of about 50% fuctose and 50% dextrose, which they say is about the same composition of table sugar or sucrose. HFCS 42 contains 42% fructose (This product is used primarily by food processors of canned goods, baking and ice cream products) and HFCS 55 contains 55% fructose (and is used primarily by the soft drink industry). While many reports show that Americans consumption of white refined sugar has dropped over the past 20 years, it is mostly a result of the switch by food companies to HFCS, which according to USDA figures shows an increased consumption by 250% over the last 15 years. Estimates are that we consume about 9% of our daily calories in the form of fructose. So why is High Fructose Corn Syrup being blamed? The problem appears to be the fructose not the corn syrup. Corn syrup?s sugar is primarily glucose, which our body burns as a source of immediate energy, is stored in muscles and our liver for later use, and releases insulin. Fructose, on the other hand, does not release or stimulate insulin. Insulin is a naturally occurring hormone that helps to metabolize our foods by pushing carbohydrates into our muscle cells to be used as energy, and allows carbohydrates to be stores in our liver for later use. It also stimulates production of another hormone, leptin, which helps to regulate our storage of body fat and increases our metabolism when needed. These two hormones keep our body fat regulated and tells us, for all intent purposes, when we are satisfied and sends the message to our brain to stop eating. Researchers at the University of Michigan found that men who consume very high levels of fructose elevated their triglyceride level by 32 percent. As trygliceride enters our blood stream, it makes our cells resistant to insulin, making our body?s fat burning and storage system even more sluggish. So what can we do? First, as always, read those labels! If you find that one of the first ingredients on the label is ?high fructose corn syrup,? look to the nutrition facts label and read how much sugar is actually in the food. If there is 2-3 grams or less, there is less concern than those foods with higher quantities. For those products, you may want to consider other alternatives that don?t contain HFCS. If the ingredient label lists ?sugar? or ?cane sugar? the ingredient is made from sucrose, which is a 50/50 blend of fructose and glucose, which has not been found to cause the same problems. You may be surprised to see just which foods contain HFCS: sodas you would expect, but others like juices, candies, baked goods, cookies, syrups, yogurts, soups, ketchup, breakfast cereals, soups and pasta sauces may surprise you. In 1966 per capita consumption of high fructose corn syrup was zero ? in 2001 that rose to 62.6 pounds per person per year. We can win the fat war by reading the labels and sending the message to food companies to make the changes to help us eat better and lead healthier lives. What we buy (and don?t buy) on the supermarket shelves is the most powerful communication. _________________________________________________________________ Learn how to choose, serve, and enjoy wine at Wine @ MSN. http://wine.msn.com/ From bio_phy at hotmail.com Sat Jan 10 15:13:17 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 17:13:17 -0600 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: Yeah, I'm 250 but could easily be happy and healthy at, like, 180. Even 200 would give me more energy, I think. The problem is that I like sugar, bread, potatoes, and pasta, all the things that Atkins frowns on. Plus, *keeping* the weight off without getting nutty is important. I'm still weighing (heh) my options. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >From: lazarus >To: dragaera at dragaera.info >Subject: Re: Steve's Web Log >Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 12:21:31 -0800 > >On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:12:20 -0600, you wrote: > > >I really should do something. I've been looking at Atkins, but *that* >just > >seems like too much work. > >If you only need to lose a few pounds, the cheating way to do Atkins >is to cut out the major portions of carbs from your diet. For >instance, I usually don't gain any weight at all if I simply go to >diet sodas. (I have to use Diet Rite or Hansen's Diet, since I'm >violently allergic to Nutrasweet). 2 litres of Coke a day was packing >the poundage on me. > >Then look at dropping the bags of chips and stuff and going to better >carbs, like fruit or my favourite, jicama. Just cutting out the >excess carbs can actually bring down a bit of weight. The whole >programme is really only necessary if you need to do some serious >weight loss. I need to go back on it. I lost 65 pounds in about 4 >months, but put it back on when I dropped off the programme >altogether. Got custody of my 12 year old daughter, and suddenly >there's dry cereal in the house, which is my arch-nemesis. I found >it easier to quit smoking than to stay away from Cheerios and Lucky >Charms. The dry cereal even overcomes the diet soda regimen. Evil >Cereal. > > >-- > >laz > >I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. >Ask me about franchise opportunities! _________________________________________________________________ Get a FREE online virus check for your PC here, from McAfee. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From pulmon at comcast.net Sat Jan 10 17:07:56 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 20:07:56 -0500 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <973A8CC2-43D2-11D8-89F6-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Atkins works really well for >90% of the people who try it. The myth about total abstinence from carbs is based on a "grain" of truth: during the first 2 weeks you keep total carbs to under 20 grams per day. That means one small green salad and one portion of low-carb veggies (e.g., broccoli, asparagus, green beans) per day. all the meat, fish, eggs, and most of the cheese you can eat. After 2 weeks you add carbs back in gradually. You can go off the diet for special meals (I had a wonderful pasta nero in new york Thursday night) as long as you go right back on it. Unless you are a Vegan it is a pretty easy diet. If you ARE a Vegan, your weight loss is really fast since for two weeks you can't eat ANYTHING (LOL). I agree with laz' comments on soda, chips and other high carb junk food, too. Ken On Jan 10, 2004, at 3:21 PM, lazarus wrote: > On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:12:20 -0600, you wrote: > >> I really should do something. I've been looking at Atkins, but >> *that* just >> seems like too much work. > > If you only need to lose a few pounds, the cheating way to do Atkins > is to cut out the major portions of carbs from your diet. For > instance, I usually don't gain any weight at all if I simply go to > diet sodas. (I have to use Diet Rite or Hansen's Diet, since I'm > violently allergic to Nutrasweet). 2 litres of Coke a day was packing > the poundage on me. > > Then look at dropping the bags of chips and stuff and going to better > carbs, like fruit or my favourite, jicama. Just cutting out the > excess carbs can actually bring down a bit of weight. The whole > programme is really only necessary if you need to do some serious > weight loss. I need to go back on it. I lost 65 pounds in about 4 > months, but put it back on when I dropped off the programme > altogether. Got custody of my 12 year old daughter, and suddenly > there's dry cereal in the house, which is my arch-nemesis. I found > it easier to quit smoking than to stay away from Cheerios and Lucky > Charms. The dry cereal even overcomes the diet soda regimen. Evil > Cereal. > > > -- > > laz > > I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. > Ask me about franchise opportunities! > From hans117 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 10 22:32:34 2004 From: hans117 at yahoo.com (Hans Schweitzer) Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 22:32:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <973A8CC2-43D2-11D8-89F6-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040111063234.62635.qmail@web13811.mail.yahoo.com> Two quick things. One with our fat obsessed culture I hear enough about dieting and people thinking that they are overweight that I would prefer not to hear about it from this list. Two this dieting thing is very annoying. I personally I think that you should eat whatever you want and exercise regularly (I suggest a sport, specifically Lacrosse.) I've noticed that when you exercise a lot you don't want to eat unhealthy foods, plus you are actually healthier not just thinner. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Sun Jan 11 02:40:46 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 02:40:46 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: <200401110240.AA1274937936@amish2000.com> From: Hans Schweitzer Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 22:32:34 -0800 (PST) >Two quick things. One with our fat obsessed culture I hear enough about dieting and people thinking that they are overweight that I would prefer not to hear about it from this list. Better us than Britney Aguilera, or whatever her name is. >Two this dieting thing is very annoying. I personally I think that you should eat whatever you want and exercise regularly (I suggest a sport, specifically Lacrosse.) I've noticed that when you exercise a lot you don't want to eat unhealthy foods, plus you are actually healthier not just thinner. Hey, I've no beef with lacrosse; it's how I got to college practically free, after all. But some people can't afford to spend three hours out of their days looking for a pick-up lacrosse game, and some people get thunk to be wierd if they carry around that cute little stick with them all the time. Some people don't feel like exercising more than the usual stomping around the office, and so they turn to magical foods that will disappear the fat for them. ("Disappear" is now an intransitive AND a transitive verb. Mark will back me up on this, or I'll cry at him.) I think it's awesome and fascinating that people do this dieting thing at all, and eagerly await more reports of same. ? MJ, eating a bowl of ice cream From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Sun Jan 11 00:12:56 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 00:12:56 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <200401110240.AA1274937936@amish2000.com> References: <200401110240.AA1274937936@amish2000.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 02:40:46 -0800, you wrote: > >From: Hans Schweitzer >Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 22:32:34 -0800 (PST) >>Two this dieting thing is very annoying. I personally >I think that you should eat whatever you want and exercise >regularly (I suggest a sport, specifically Lacrosse.) I've >noticed that when you exercise a lot you don't want to eat >unhealthy foods, plus you are actually healthier not just >thinner. > >Hey, I've no beef with lacrosse; it's how I got to college >practically free, after all. But some people can't afford to >spend three hours out of their days looking for a pick-up >lacrosse game, and some people get thunk to be wierd if they >carry around that cute little stick with them all the time. >Some people don't feel like exercising more than the usual >stomping around the office, and so they turn to magical foods >that will disappear the fat for them. ("Disappear" is now an >intransitive AND a transitive verb. Mark will back me up on >this, or I'll cry at him.) I think it's awesome and >fascinating that people do this dieting thing at all, and >eagerly await more reports of same. > And some of us are physically incapable of exercise, due to physical disability. Lacrosse is a great idea. I'd be happy if I could get out of bed without being in pain. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From davids at kithrup.com Sun Jan 11 01:03:04 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 01:03:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <200401110240.AA1274937936@amish2000.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, M J wrote: >("Disappear" is now an intransitive AND a transitive verb. Mark will >back me up on this, or I'll cry at him.) Mark's a great guy, as well as being secretly Mario. Fortunately, you don't need to get on his bad side, because the venerable Oxford English Dictionary already says that disappear is both intransitive and transitive. So you may cheerfully disappear your tears. 1. a. intr. To cease to appear or be visible; to vanish from sight. The reverse of APPEAR. Also with advb. expressions introduced by prepositions. 1667 MILTON P.L. VIII. 478 She disappeerd, and left me dark, I wak'd To find her, or for ever to deplore Her loss. [...] 3. trans. To cause to disappear. 1897 Chem. News 19 Mar. 143 We progressively disappear the faces of the dodecahedron. 1949 Amer. Speech XXIV. 41 The magician may speak of disappearing or vanishing a card. From casey at the-bat.net Sun Jan 11 02:02:46 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 05:02:46 -0500 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <002101c3d82a$101280e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> Lazarus wrote: > If you only need to lose a few pounds, the cheating way to do > Atkins is to cut out the major portions of carbs from your > diet. For instance, I usually don't gain any weight at all > if I simply go to diet sodas. (I have to use Diet Rite or > Hansen's Diet, since I'm violently allergic to Nutrasweet). > 2 litres of Coke a day was packing the poundage on me. Three years ago, after flirting with the 300 mark for a some time, I gave up Coke for Diet Coke. In six weeks I lost 35 pounds. Six months later I was back knocking on that door and then walking through it. On Atkins, I've lost more weight, and six months into it I don't miss pasta, milk, rice, dry cereal or doughnuts. I had discovered sucralose (the sweetener in Diet Rite) about the same time that I switched to diet soda and have always preferred it over aspratame. Atkins points to studies that indicate that aspartame may be an appetite stimulant and so he discouraged consuming sodas that contain it. Hans Schweitzer wrote: > ... I personally > I think that you should eat whatever you want and exercise > regularly (I suggest a sport, specifically Lacrosse.) I've > noticed that when you exercise a lot you don't want to eat > unhealthy foods, plus you are actually healthier not just thinner. I absolutely agree. The great thing is, I can now do just that. I can eat whatever I want, and I have now gotten to a weight where it isn't painful for me to even think about getting back into my favorite sport (Ultimate). I wouldn't recommend Atkins to anyone who only needs to lose a few pounds, but if your doctor has warned you repeatedly that your weight is threatening your health, I'd discuss it as an option with him or her. I started it with two other people at work. One had small success, but could not deal with carbohydrate withdrawal and quit after two weeks. The other had lost 75lbs on low carb plan seven years ago, but had not stuck with it and had been yo-yoing ever since. He lost nothing in three weeks. Mileage varies. Casey From warlord at dragon.com Sun Jan 11 12:55:28 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 15:55:28 -0500 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <200401110240.AA1274937936@amish2000.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: M J [mailto:saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com] > > From: Hans Schweitzer > Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 22:32:34 -0800 (PST) > > >Two quick things. One with our fat obsessed culture I hear > enough about dieting and people thinking that they are > overweight that I would prefer not to hear about it from this > list. > > Better us than Britney Aguilera, or whatever her name is. > > >Two this dieting thing is very annoying. I personally > I think that you should eat whatever you want and exercise > regularly (I suggest a sport, specifically Lacrosse.) I've > noticed that when you exercise a lot you don't want to eat > unhealthy foods, plus you are actually healthier not just > thinner. > > Hey, I've no beef with lacrosse; it's how I got to college > practically free, after all. But some people can't afford to > spend three hours out of their days looking for a pick-up > lacrosse game, and some people get thunk to be wierd if they > carry around that cute little stick with them all the time. > Some people don't feel like exercising more than the usual > stomping around the office, and so they turn to magical foods > that will disappear the fat for them. ("Disappear" is now an > intransitive AND a transitive verb. Mark will back me up on > this, or I'll cry at him.) I think it's awesome and > fascinating that people do this dieting thing at all, and > eagerly await more reports of same. > > ? Actually, "disappear" is already used bothitive ways. I'm more interested in your unique usage of, "get thunk to be." :-D W floccinaucinihilipilification humorous. [f. L. flocci, nauci, nihili, pili words signifying `at a small price' or `at nothing' enumerated in a well-known rule of the Eton Latin Grammar + -fication] The action or habit of estimating as worthless. From rone at ennui.org Sun Jan 11 13:35:01 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 13:35:01 -0800 (PST) Subject: DunDraCon? Message-ID: <20040111213501.1653826C35@boredom.ennui.org> I'll be there. I noticed that someone (Sophie Lagace) will be running a 7th Sea game set in Dragaera. http://www.tlucretius.net/Dragaera/ The blurb for the game: "It is the reign of the Orca, in the Cycle of the Teckla. The Emperor has reigned for over 4900 years; the Teckla heir is missing. Is it the end of the Cycle?" I've never played 7th Sea, but, hey, that sounds cool, no? By the way, DunDraCon's site is http://www.dundracon.com/ rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From rone at ennui.org Sun Jan 11 18:01:27 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 18:01:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <003201c3d64f$5840ad60$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: <20040112020127.91DA426C35@boredom.ennui.org> warbi writes: Entrapment is a major weapon of police these days, just like illegal search and seizure. There have even been recent movements to do away with the Miranda rights. If they think drugs are involved, kiss your rights good-bye. I think you are overstating the case regarding Miranda rights. They've been overromanticized by cops in TV and movies. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sun Jan 11 18:16:44 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 18:16:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fw: the pitfalls of judgmental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <20040112020127.91DA426C35@boredom.ennui.org> References: <20040112020127.91DA426C35@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 rone at ennui.org wrote: > warbi writes: > Entrapment is a major weapon of police these days, just like illegal > search and seizure. There have even been recent movements to do away with > the Miranda rights. If they think drugs are involved, kiss your rights > good-bye. > > I think you are overstating the case regarding Miranda rights. > They've been overromanticized by cops in TV and movies. I suspect you're underestimating the extent to which Miranda rights fail to impede law enforcement (because criminals are stupid, because the warning is repeated to background noise, because the police can effectively evade [or at least lessen the effect of] granting the right); and I've read that the law enforcement community is increasingly in support of Miranda, for the sake of transparency (as with the trend of videotaping complete interrogations in capital cases). Anyway, this is far away from Dragaera, where we know what the noble attitude towards "police" is. From agrajag at dragaera.net Sun Jan 11 18:28:48 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: 11 Jan 2004 21:28:48 -0500 Subject: DunDraCon? In-Reply-To: <20040111213501.1653826C35@boredom.ennui.org> References: <20040111213501.1653826C35@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: <1073874528.2558.40.camel@loiosh> On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 16:35, rone wrote: > I'll be there. I noticed that someone (Sophie Lagace) will be running > a 7th Sea game set in Dragaera. http://www.tlucretius.net/Dragaera/ Sounds interesting. > > The blurb for the game: "It is the reign of the Orca, in the Cycle of > the Teckla. The Emperor has reigned for over 4900 years; the Teckla > heir is missing. Is it the end of the Cycle?" Eep! Now I worry about the game. If memory serves, Teckla have no heir, they aren't noble afterall. Instead they have a revolt and put a representative council or somesuch into power. I'm pretty sure that's mentioned in one of the Vlad novels.. most likely _Teckla_. > > I've never played 7th Sea, but, hey, that sounds cool, no? > I don't play it myself, but the friend who introduced me to Steven's works plays it. I'll have to send her the link. From agrajag at dragaera.net Sun Jan 11 18:41:37 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: 11 Jan 2004 21:41:37 -0500 Subject: Dragaera Book Search Message-ID: <1073875297.2558.49.camel@loiosh> I was unsure who to send this to, so I'm just sending it here. Hope it gets to the right person. I was playing with the Dragaera Book Search on dragaera.info and noticed that it gives black responses at times. For instance, if you search for 'teckla reign', then click the second response (should be for 500ya01.html) which is a three-star match, you don't see any useful data on the match. Also, is there a way the 'Show' buttons can be turned into normal links? I'd love to be able to go through the list and just open the first few hits, each in their own tab, then go through them, closing the ones I don't want, and leaving the others open. Unfortunately, with the way it is right now, I have to keep using Back and Forward to go through it, which is a little annoying. Thanks, Jag From dd-b at dd-b.net Sun Jan 11 19:38:06 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:38:06 -0600 Subject: Dragaera Book Search In-Reply-To: <1073875297.2558.49.camel@loiosh> (agrajag@dragaera.net's message of "11 Jan 2004 21:41:37 -0500") References: <1073875297.2558.49.camel@loiosh> Message-ID: Jag writes: > I was unsure who to send this to, so I'm just sending it here. Hope it > gets to the right person. > > > I was playing with the Dragaera Book Search on dragaera.info and noticed > that it gives black responses at times. For instance, if you search for > 'teckla reign', then click the second response (should be for > 500ya01.html) which is a three-star match, you don't see any useful data > on the match. Nope, 500YA doesn't show up until the *7th* response, and is a 2-star match when I do it, and it's 500ya23 anyway. But yeah, 500YA01 does show up blank on the detail. This is because the words never actually appear associated with each other, or even repeating near themselves, often enough. There is no actual match. The problem is that the front-end, htdig, is really intended to search web pages, and to consider an entire document to be a "hit", and that doesn't work for what's wanted in booksearch. So I've got rather a hack going to use it for front-end, and then do detail search in the chapter when you go there. > Also, is there a way the 'Show' buttons can be turned into normal > links? Hmmm; no real technical reason why it couldn't be done, it'd just be uglier. > I'd love to be able to go through the list and just open the first > few hits, each in their own tab, then go through them, closing the > ones I don't want, and leaving the others open. Unfortunately, with > the way it is right now, I have to keep using Back and Forward to go > through it, which is a little annoying. Duplicate the page (it's CTRL-SHIFT/N in Opera, the only one I use regularly enough to remember such things) before following each link. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Sun Jan 11 23:25:19 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:25:19 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: <200401112325.AA2418606598@amish2000.com> From: "Warlord" Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 15:55:28 -0500 >> From: M J [mailto:saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com] >> From: Hans Schweitzer >> Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 22:32:34 -0800 (PST) >> spend three hours out of their days looking for a pick-up >> lacrosse game, and some people get thunk to be wierd if they >> carry around that cute little stick with them all the time. >> Some people don't feel like exercising more than the usual >> stomping around the office, and so they turn to magical foods >> that will disappear the fat for them. ("Disappear" is now an >> intransitive AND a transitive verb. Mark will back me up on >> this, or I'll cry at him.) I think it's awesome and >> fascinating that people do this dieting thing at all, and >> eagerly await more reports of same. >> >> ? > >Actually, "disappear" is already used bothitive ways. I'm more >interested in your unique usage of, "get thunk to be." :-D And I also misspelled "weird". Faaaaaaaaaaantastic. As for "thunk to be," it's a Daymarism. ? MJ From davids at kithrup.com Sun Jan 11 21:42:17 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:42:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <200401112325.AA2418606598@amish2000.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, M J wrote: > >As for "thunk to be," it's a Daymarism. > Really? I thought it was more of a lacrossism. You know - "Incoming!" *thunk*. I juggle lacrosse balls. They've got a nice solid heft, which makes them also very good for contact juggling, but they can really do some damage when they go haywire. *wham* *crashsplattertinkle* ohshit. From davids at kithrup.com Sun Jan 11 21:46:53 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:46:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dragaera Book Search In-Reply-To: Message-ID: By the way, there's also something mislinked about the archive web search. When I get to a page, it looks OK, but clicking on the forward or back arrows to examine the thread always takes me to message number "1" in the archives. Is any fix possible for that? From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Mon Jan 12 03:09:14 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 03:09:14 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log Message-ID: <200401120309.AA180486596@amish2000.com> From: David Silberstein Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:42:17 -0800 (PST) >On Sun, 11 Jan 2004, M J wrote: > >> >>As for "thunk to be," it's a Daymarism. >> >Really? I thought it was more of a lacrossism. You know - >"Incoming!" *thunk*. > >I juggle lacrosse balls. They've got a nice solid heft, which makes >them also very good for contact juggling, but they can really do some >damage when they go haywire. Ah, hence the Daymarism! He'd juggle them WITH HIS MIND, only then Vlad (or, I guess, Kragar) would call, wanting something or other, and then Daymar would LET GO of the balls in favor of asking Vlad where they were going. THUNK THUNK THUNK. Possibly right into a vat of pudding. And I can't say how glad I am that there are more people out there who juggle lacrosse balls. The trick is to wear shinguards while doing it. ? MJ, who also had to wear a kilt while playing lacrosse From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Jan 12 09:52:49 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 11:52:49 -0600 Subject: Dragaera Book Search In-Reply-To: (David Silberstein's message of "Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:46:53 -0800 (PST)") References: Message-ID: David Silberstein writes: > By the way, there's also something mislinked about the archive web > search. Are you talking about the mailing list archive (.../mailinglists/archive.cgi?...) or the dragaera search (...dragaerasearch...)? > When I get to a page, it looks OK, but clicking on the forward or back > arrows to examine the thread always takes me to message number "1" in > the archives. "Arrows" makes me think the mailing list archives. The question then is what type of mailing list archive page? An individual message page, a month page, a thread page, or what? Could you maybe send me the exact URL of the page you get the problem on? Because I've poked the arrow buttons on many of them, and they seem to do what I expect. > Is any fix possible for that? Haven't reproduced it yet, so I don't know. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Mon Jan 12 10:01:39 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:01:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: <20040109211223.89824.qmail@web20308.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040112180139.78537.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> I'll start by eating vegetarian cows. You can't get Mad Cow Disease from them. (It's probably just a coincidence that SARS may have come from carnivores being sold for food.) Jerry Friedman --- John Almasi wrote: > Mad Cow Disease tears it. As a dedicated omnivore I > must ask that the "plan" be moved into the next phase. > Begin eating the vegetarians now! We can no longer > wait for the long term evolutionary consequences of > voluntarily placing oneself on a lower rung of the > food chain to manifest. We, the meat-eaters, must act > to ensure a stable food supply. > > Cheers, > John __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus From agrajag at dragaera.net Mon Jan 12 10:20:54 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 13:20:54 -0500 Subject: Dragaera Book Search In-Reply-To: References: <1073875297.2558.49.camel@loiosh> Message-ID: <1073931654.4312.21.camel@pel> On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 22:38, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Jag writes: > > > I was unsure who to send this to, so I'm just sending it here. Hope it > > gets to the right person. > > > > > > I was playing with the Dragaera Book Search on dragaera.info and noticed > > that it gives black responses at times. For instance, if you search for > > 'teckla reign', then click the second response (should be for > > 500ya01.html) which is a three-star match, you don't see any useful data > > on the match. > > Nope, 500YA doesn't show up until the *7th* response, and is a 2-star > match when I do it, and it's 500ya23 anyway. This is interesting. I go do the search now and I get what you describe, and notice that its searching for 'teckla' OR 'reign', then I go and click search again (without changing the terms), and suddenly its searching for 'teckla' AND 'reign', and produces the output I described. > > But yeah, 500YA01 does show up blank on the detail. This is because > the words never actually appear associated with each other, or even > repeating near themselves, often enough. There is no actual match. > > The problem is that the front-end, htdig, is really intended to search > web pages, and to consider an entire document to be a "hit", and that > doesn't work for what's wanted in booksearch. So I've got rather a > hack going to use it for front-end, and then do detail search in the > chapter when you go there. Hmm.. I see. Wonder if htdig could be convinced to weed them out. Unfortunately, I've never dealt with htdig before from the admin side. > > > Also, is there a way the 'Show' buttons can be turned into normal > > links? > > Hmmm; no real technical reason why it couldn't be done, it'd just be > uglier. I think we have different opinions on 'ugly', but I don't want to argue aesthetics. > > > I'd love to be able to go through the list and just open the first > > few hits, each in their own tab, then go through them, closing the > > ones I don't want, and leaving the others open. Unfortunately, with > > the way it is right now, I have to keep using Back and Forward to go > > through it, which is a little annoying. > > Duplicate the page (it's CTRL-SHIFT/N in Opera, the only one I use > regularly enough to remember such things) before following each link. Unfortunately mozilla doesn't seem to have that functionality. From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 12 10:25:36 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:25:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dragaera Book Search In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >David Silberstein writes: > >> By the way, there's also something mislinked about the archive web >> search. > >Are you talking about the mailing list archive >(.../mailinglists/archive.cgi?...) or the dragaera search >(...dragaerasearch...)? Sorry, I meant dragaerasearch. Let me expand on that: I go to dragaeraseach, and I put in some term (e.g., "Devera"). This returns hits on external web pages, and in the dragaera archive. If I follow one of the archive links, I get the following URL: http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/4490 This *appears* to be a normal archive page, and it has arrows, like the usual archive has. However, the back-arrow's URL is: http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/archive.cgi?1:msp:4490 And when I follow that, rather than getting the archive page that precedes the current one in the thread, I get the first page in the archive ("The Dragaera list is now officially open for business!"). I hope that's sufficient. From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Jan 12 11:32:35 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 13:32:35 -0600 Subject: Dragaera Book Search In-Reply-To: (David Silberstein's message of "Mon, 12 Jan 2004 10:25:36 -0800 (PST)") References: Message-ID: David Silberstein writes: > http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/4490 > > This *appears* to be a normal archive page, and it has arrows, like > the usual archive has. > > However, the back-arrow's URL is: > > http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/archive.cgi?1:msp:4490 > > And when I follow that, rather than getting the archive page that > precedes the current one in the thread, I get the first page in the > archive ("The Dragaera list is now officially open for business!"). > > I hope that's sufficient. Detail is always good. Yes, I can make that happen now. There's a special version of the archive presented for indexing purposes, which avoids loops and such that might confuse the indexing spider. It's the navigation buttons in *that* version of the archive (which of course is what you reach via the search) that isn't working right. I can't tell yet if it's a bug in the actual web presentation program (which I didn't write, but it's free software and if desperate enough I can go into the source and try to fix it), or just in my configuration and template files (I hope). Okay, it's on the bug list. Thanks! -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Jan 12 11:39:28 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 13:39:28 -0600 Subject: Dragaera Book Search In-Reply-To: <1073931654.4312.21.camel@pel> (agrajag@dragaera.net's message of "Mon, 12 Jan 2004 13:20:54 -0500") References: <1073875297.2558.49.camel@loiosh> <1073931654.4312.21.camel@pel> Message-ID: Jag writes: > On Sun, 2004-01-11 at 22:38, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >> Jag writes: >> >> > I was unsure who to send this to, so I'm just sending it here. Hope it >> > gets to the right person. >> > >> > >> > I was playing with the Dragaera Book Search on dragaera.info and noticed >> > that it gives black responses at times. For instance, if you search for >> > 'teckla reign', then click the second response (should be for >> > 500ya01.html) which is a three-star match, you don't see any useful data >> > on the match. >> >> Nope, 500YA doesn't show up until the *7th* response, and is a 2-star >> match when I do it, and it's 500ya23 anyway. > > This is interesting. I go do the search now and I get what you > describe, and notice that its searching for 'teckla' OR 'reign', then I > go and click search again (without changing the terms), and suddenly its > searching for 'teckla' AND 'reign', and produces the output I described. Sounds like a bug to me, I'll get that on the list. (I would guess I failed to override one of the defaults on the search form on the results page.) >> But yeah, 500YA01 does show up blank on the detail. This is because >> the words never actually appear associated with each other, or even >> repeating near themselves, often enough. There is no actual match. >> >> The problem is that the front-end, htdig, is really intended to search >> web pages, and to consider an entire document to be a "hit", and that >> doesn't work for what's wanted in booksearch. So I've got rather a >> hack going to use it for front-end, and then do detail search in the >> chapter when you go there. > > Hmm.. I see. Wonder if htdig could be convinced to weed them out. > Unfortunately, I've never dealt with htdig before from the admin side. Don't think so; the association with a "hit" to a "document" is very basic to the entire htdig structure (and any normal web search engine). Probably in the long run I should get rid of that and do the whole thing myself, but that sounds a lot like work. >> > Also, is there a way the 'Show' buttons can be turned into normal >> > links? >> >> Hmmm; no real technical reason why it couldn't be done, it'd just be >> uglier. > > I think we have different opinions on 'ugly', but I don't want to argue > aesthetics. Internal uglyness, actually; even harder to justify as important. I could certainly pass the arguments in the URL instead, and of course I'm not counting on any of that data to be secure (it's not much harder to play with in the form anyway). >> > I'd love to be able to go through the list and just open the first >> > few hits, each in their own tab, then go through them, closing the >> > ones I don't want, and leaving the others open. Unfortunately, with >> > the way it is right now, I have to keep using Back and Forward to go >> > through it, which is a little annoying. >> >> Duplicate the page (it's CTRL-SHIFT/N in Opera, the only one I use >> regularly enough to remember such things) before following each link. > > Unfortunately mozilla doesn't seem to have that functionality. That seems to be true. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From casey at the-bat.net Mon Jan 12 11:47:29 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:47:29 -0500 Subject: Dragaera Book Search In-Reply-To: Message-ID: David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Internal uglyness, actually; even harder to justify as important. I dunno. Internal ugliness would definitely make me less inclined to want to fix/change anything else later. Casey From tsarren at alyra.org Mon Jan 12 23:03:29 2004 From: tsarren at alyra.org (Tsarren) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 01:03:29 -0600 Subject: the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement In-Reply-To: <20040108213254.GB67306@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <36.4ede6c31.2d2f1721@aol.com> <5ghrvv4f1n38abipnjnb9a9362n7gpdnr2@4ax.com> <20040108213254.GB67306@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <20040113070328.GP1101@Durandal> On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 04:32:54PM -0500, Steve Simmons wrote: > > There are places in Indiana where they put up "We Are Watching You" > signs with outlines of helicopters, cops with a radar gun, etc. They > don't actually have those things, they just have a the signs. At > the time it was a standard item available from the state highway folks, > no radar or helicopter purchase required. There were (are?) signs in rural Oklahoma that read: "Watch your [silhouette of an airplane] we are [silhouette of a police cruiser]" As a child or five or so I wondered what specific aviation hazard was being warned against, and what possible use such a sign could have down on the ground. Kat From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Tue Jan 13 05:40:06 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 08:40:06 -0500 Subject: Greetings Message-ID: Hello, I'm new to the list, but have been reading Mr. Brust's books since Jhereg came out, and he is in my pantheon of favorite authors. The Vlad novels are the only series of books I've read more than once. The second to last time I read through them (!), I did it chronologically (as much as I could), as opposed to in order of publishing, and found it an entirely different experience. But that was perhaps two (Vlad) books ago, and I haven't factored in Khaavren. Unfortunately, at the pace I read, a complete traverse through the series will likely take me a year now. Well, perhaps that's fortunate after all. I claim my Stupid Newbie Question (we all get one, just like a phone call from jail, right?) thusly: Has there ever been a professional/amateur effort to graphically depict (i.e. draw/paint/psiprint) the animals of the 17 houses? If so, are they collected/accessible anywhere, and if not, why not? Noam -- Big 'n' Mean Zero (Noam Izenberg - Don't mess with this Null) From davids at kithrup.com Tue Jan 13 09:13:27 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:13:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Greetings In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: Greetings, and welcome to this humble list. >Has there ever been a professional/amateur effort to graphically >depict (i.e. draw/paint/psiprint) the animals of the 17 houses? If >so, are they collected/accessible anywhere, and if not, why not? > Well. I nearly think that I have the honor to have been able to search and find exactly what you are looking for; indeed, I not only have found such things but have in fact posted them before. Not only have I posted them before, but I have saved the information, and, since you seem to have the desire to in point of fact view those selfsame images, I believe I can satisfy that curiosity by providing the links once again. Ahem. That sonofabitch is completely out of control, isn't he? Anyway, the artist who has done the most with Brust's Dragaeran Cycle is Kathy Grantham (she who was once named Kathy Marschall - you may notice a certain similarity between that name and another name from the books; this is not a coincidence). Here is what she has done: Phoenix: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/k/a/kathyg/phoenixcolor96.jpg.html Dzur Mountain (including an actual dzur): http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/k/a/kathyg/dzur96.jpg.html Tiassa: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/k/a/kathyg/tiassa.jpg.html Orca: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/k/a/kathyg/orca.jpg.html Issola: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/k/a/kathyg/issola.jpg.html Jhereg: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/k/a/kathyg/jhereg.jpg.html Note that the jhereg doesn't look much like the one on the bookcovers, but is apparantly closer to Steve's actual mental image. Here's another jhereg, by a different artist: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/d/a/danisylv/jhereg.jpg.html Oh, and Steve Hickman, who did the cover of /Dragon/, has a nice picture of a jhereg, even if it isn't quite the way it should actually look: http://www.ulster.net/~shickman/welcome.html And that is all I could find, the last time I looked. There may be more out there since that time, but I haven't looked recently. From mam at theworld.com Tue Jan 13 17:35:05 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 20:35:05 -0500 Subject: reading... Message-ID: I picked up some idle reading the other week and said, "Hmm! This is set in that shared world Steve or some of his Scribblie friends write in." Read for a while and enjoyed it, then put it down. A day or so later I picked up something else, read it, and said, "That was good! That's in that shared world, too... Wait a minute! Those two stories were in different worlds entirely!!" (Some of you can already see where this is going.) Pick up the two books and look at them. LiaDEN -- LiaVEK. Not the same. WTH do made-up names wind up being so similar?! -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Jan 13 17:41:25 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 17:41:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: reading... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > I picked up some idle reading the other week and said, "Hmm! This is set > in that shared world Steve or some of his Scribblie friends write in." > Read for a while and enjoyed it, then put it down. > > A day or so later I picked up something else, read it, and said, "That > was good! That's in that shared world, too... Wait a minute! Those two > stories were in different worlds entirely!!" > > (Some of you can already see where this is going.) > > Pick up the two books and look at them. LiaDEN -- LiaVEK. Not the same. This is an instance of a little-known phenomenon similar to Clarke's "9 Bnames of God" - when SKZB has written stories set in each of the several universes named by 6-letter combinations, this world will end, From ReVibe68 at aol.com Tue Jan 13 18:21:34 2004 From: ReVibe68 at aol.com (ReVibe68 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 21:21:34 EST Subject: Greetings Message-ID: <87.3105a41.2d3601ae@aol.com> In a message dated 1/13/04 8:40:48 AM Eastern Standard Time, noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu writes: > I claim my Stupid Newbie Question (we all get one, just like a phone > call from jail, right?) thusly: Has there ever been a > professional/amateur effort to graphically depict (i.e. > draw/paint/psiprint) the animals of the 17 houses? If so, are they > collected/accessible anywhere, and if not, why not? > > No,no,no; This is not a valid Stupid Newbie Question! THis is a pretty simple question that I for one never bothered to even think about.. You sir have the perspicacity of a Tiassa, and moreover the piercing inquisitiveness of an Athyra. I salute you. by the way anyone else got an answer to this question? Politicians and Diapers have one thing in common. They should be changed regularly and for The Same Reason!!. Truth Is Truth. From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 13 18:46:37 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 18:46:37 -0800 Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works Message-ID: Greetings everyone. I've long been an avid reader of Steven Brust. I've read most of his works, and I just recently found this e-mail list. Let me preface my question saying that I suppose it is of a personal nature, certainly touching upon the personal politics of Mr. Brust and his family, and I apologize if Mr. Brust finds it offensive, or forward. I once was telling a friend about Steven Brust's book, recommending them in fact, when my friend told me that once reading in a book about the Minneapolis Teamsters' stike in 34', the name of two Brusts (Jean being one) being active in that movement. I could not help but be suprised, as Steven Brust would have been much too young to participate in that, I figured it must've been his parents or other relatives. I was unable to find all that much information linking them; however, I found a clip on the internet listing prominent labour activists in Minneapolis that linked Jean Brust as the mother of a Steven Brust. Now, I brought this all up to ask I suppose a simple question. I certainly noticed, while reading Teckla that there undeniable political undercurrents in the whole concept of Teckla movement, and certainly specifically in Kelly's movement. I was wondering, does Kelly's movement embody any sort of modern (I use the word modern because Dragaeran politics certainly don't fit in any concept of a "modern" political system) revolution of labour theory. I ask this because I always had a nagging suspicion that they were of a "leftist" tendency. After seeing the beliefs of what I believe are Mr. Steven Brust's parents, I would be inclined to answer that Kelly's group does. I certainly do not mean to offend or to pry into Mr. Brust's personal life and I apologize if I so do and I retract this message if it does. Thank you. -Jeff From skzb at dreamcafe.com Tue Jan 13 20:30:32 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 20:30:32 -0800 Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works References: Message-ID: <006801c3da57$25f97060$fe00000a@steve> No apology needed. I'm a Red. Never made any secret of it. On the other hand, I also try to steer clear of political arguments, since they instantly turn me into a flaming asshole. I don't always succeed, mind you; but I do try. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey Kiok" To: Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 6:46 PM Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works > Greetings everyone. I've long been an avid reader of Steven Brust. > I've read most of his works, and I just recently found this e-mail > list. Let me preface my question saying that I suppose it is of a > personal nature, certainly touching upon the personal politics of Mr. > Brust and his family, and I apologize if Mr. Brust finds it offensive, > or forward. > > I once was telling a friend about Steven Brust's book, recommending > them in fact, when my friend told me that once reading in a book about > the Minneapolis Teamsters' stike in 34', the name of two Brusts (Jean > being one) being active in that movement. I could not help but be > suprised, as Steven Brust would have been much too young to participate > in that, I figured it must've been his parents or other relatives. I > was unable to find all that much information linking them; however, I > found a clip on the internet listing prominent labour activists in > Minneapolis that linked Jean Brust as the mother of a Steven Brust. > > Now, I brought this all up to ask I suppose a simple question. I > certainly noticed, while reading Teckla that there undeniable political > undercurrents in the whole concept of Teckla movement, and certainly > specifically in Kelly's movement. I was wondering, does Kelly's > movement embody any sort of modern (I use the word modern because > Dragaeran politics certainly don't fit in any concept of a "modern" > political system) revolution of labour theory. I ask this because I > always had a nagging suspicion that they were of a "leftist" tendency. > After seeing the beliefs of what I believe are Mr. Steven Brust's > parents, I would be inclined to answer that Kelly's group does. I > certainly do not mean to offend or to pry into Mr. Brust's personal > life and I apologize if I so do and I retract this message if it does. > > Thank you. > > -Jeff > > From warbi at warbi.net Tue Jan 13 22:23:58 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 22:23:58 -0800 Subject: Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works Message-ID: <00b201c3da66$ff76c900$3dadfea9@warbi> That's okay, Steve, I already got burned a few days ago for you! LOL warbi ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Brust" To: ; "Jeffrey Kiok" Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 8:30 PM Subject: Re: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works > No apology needed. I'm a Red. Never made any secret of it. > > On the other hand, I also try to steer clear of political arguments, since > they instantly turn me into a flaming asshole. I don't always succeed, mind > you; but I do try. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jeffrey Kiok" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 6:46 PM > Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works > > > > Greetings everyone. I've long been an avid reader of Steven Brust. > > I've read most of his works, and I just recently found this e-mail > > list. Let me preface my question saying that I suppose it is of a > > personal nature, certainly touching upon the personal politics of Mr. > > Brust and his family, and I apologize if Mr. Brust finds it offensive, > > or forward. > > > > I once was telling a friend about Steven Brust's book, recommending > > them in fact, when my friend told me that once reading in a book about > > the Minneapolis Teamsters' stike in 34', the name of two Brusts (Jean > > being one) being active in that movement. I could not help but be > > suprised, as Steven Brust would have been much too young to participate > > in that, I figured it must've been his parents or other relatives. I > > was unable to find all that much information linking them; however, I > > found a clip on the internet listing prominent labour activists in > > Minneapolis that linked Jean Brust as the mother of a Steven Brust. > > > > Now, I brought this all up to ask I suppose a simple question. I > > certainly noticed, while reading Teckla that there undeniable political > > undercurrents in the whole concept of Teckla movement, and certainly > > specifically in Kelly's movement. I was wondering, does Kelly's > > movement embody any sort of modern (I use the word modern because > > Dragaeran politics certainly don't fit in any concept of a "modern" > > political system) revolution of labour theory. I ask this because I > > always had a nagging suspicion that they were of a "leftist" tendency. > > After seeing the beliefs of what I believe are Mr. Steven Brust's > > parents, I would be inclined to answer that Kelly's group does. I > > certainly do not mean to offend or to pry into Mr. Brust's personal > > life and I apologize if I so do and I retract this message if it does. > > > > Thank you. > > > > -Jeff > > > > > > > From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Jan 13 20:37:09 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 20:37:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works In-Reply-To: <006801c3da57$25f97060$fe00000a@steve> References: <006801c3da57$25f97060$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: > On the other hand, I also try to steer clear of political arguments, since > they instantly turn me into a flaming asshole. I don't always succeed, mind > you; but I do try. The Flaming Lips - now there's a good band. I don't know if I've ever had a cool-headed conversation with anyone who disagrees with me about the Israeli-Palestinan conflict... From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Jan 13 20:43:41 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 22:43:41 -0600 Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works In-Reply-To: (Jeffrey Kiok's message of "Tue, 13 Jan 2004 18:46:37 -0800") References: Message-ID: Jeffrey Kiok writes: > Greetings everyone. I've long been an avid reader of Steven Brust. > I've read most of his works, and I just recently found this e-mail > list. Let me preface my question saying that I suppose it is of a > personal nature, certainly touching upon the personal politics of > Mr. Brust and his family, and I apologize if Mr. Brust finds it > offensive, or forward. > > I once was telling a friend about Steven Brust's book, recommending > them in fact, when my friend told me that once reading in a book about > the Minneapolis Teamsters' stike in 34', the name of two Brusts (Jean > being one) being active in that movement. I could not help but be > suprised, as Steven Brust would have been much too young to > participate in that, I figured it must've been his parents or other > relatives. I was unable to find all that much information linking > them; however, I found a clip on the internet listing prominent labour > activists in Minneapolis that linked Jean Brust as the mother of a > Steven Brust. Steven's parents were Jean and Bill Brust, and they were certainly active in left politics in the area throughout their lives. A very brief biography touching on some of that, taken from his final book edited by his wife, can be found online at (the Minnesota Historical Society appears to have Bill's papers in their collection). However, the timing is off for the example you cite, since Jean married Bill in 1948, so wouldn't have been Jean Brust in 1934. (The bio has Bill graduating from highschool in 1937, so 1934 is a little early for him to be terribly visible in the labor movement I'd have thought.) Now, I don't know what Bill's parents were named; it's not in the bio and I don't remember, if I ever heard. There *could* have been a "Jean Brust" of that generation, for all I know. (His parents came from Hungary, bringing Bill with them, in 1920, it says here, as a result of having been on the losing side in the 1919 Hungarian revoluion.) > Now, I brought this all up to ask I suppose a simple question. I > certainly noticed, while reading Teckla that there undeniable > political undercurrents in the whole concept of Teckla movement, and > certainly specifically in Kelly's movement. I was wondering, does > Kelly's movement embody any sort of modern (I use the word modern > because Dragaeran politics certainly don't fit in any concept of a > "modern" political system) revolution of labour theory. I ask this > because I always had a nagging suspicion that they were of a "leftist" > tendency. After seeing the beliefs of what I believe are Mr. Steven > Brust's parents, I would be inclined to answer that Kelly's group > does. I certainly do not mean to offend or to pry into Mr. Brust's > personal life and I apologize if I so do and I retract this message if > it does. Interesting. I don't study the detailed cladistics of the left with sufficient energy to be able to tell you if Kelly's movement exactly matches any movement on Earth in its beliefs, but it certainly struck me as very typical of the communist left, probably some piece that uses "workers" in its name. It's really quite a tragedy; Earthly revolutionary theory doesn't actually make much sense on Dragaera, where the Empire and its monarchy really IS ordained and protected by the gods, and controlled by the cycle. The Teckla revolution has no chance until it's their turn. You don't ask about Steven's personal life in this part that I can see; the question of whether Kelly's group is anything like politics on Earth being different from the question of whether it's like *Steven's* politics or the politics of any other actual person. Authors, as you know, often write about characters and groups that they don't fully agree with. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From skzb at dreamcafe.com Wed Jan 14 01:15:50 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 01:15:50 -0800 Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works References: Message-ID: <001401c3da7f$00f53ec0$fe00000a@steve> > been a "Jean Brust" of that generation, for all I know. (His parents > came from Hungary, bringing Bill with them, in 1920, it says here, as > a result of having been on the losing side in the 1919 Hungarian > revoluion.) > Odd...I remember being told all my life that it was '21, not 20. But you're right about the rest of it. My Grandfather, Zoltan Brust, was a delegate to his soviet (I think he worked in a bicycle factory) in the revolution of 1919, and left when Horthy came to power. So far as I know, his wife, Mariska, was never political. The attitude nagyapa (grandpa) always presented to my father was something like, "Well, if a revolution comes along, of course you support it, but don't go out of your way to make trouble." Dad, of course, specialized in going out of his way to make trouble. The other thing nagyapa used to say whenever my father screwed up was, "From this you make a revolution?" > You don't ask about Steven's personal life in this part that I can > see; the question of whether Kelly's group is anything like politics > on Earth being different from the question of whether it's like > *Steven's* politics or the politics of any other actual person. > Authors, as you know, often write about characters and groups that > they don't fully agree with. Correct again. In particular, if I'm going to introduce politics into a story, I try to make it politics that my protragonists are contemptuous of, or at least don't agree with; my hope is that this keeps me from getting pedantic. I hate pedantic fiction. Hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of these days. From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Jan 14 05:24:25 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 08:24:25 -0500 Subject: Greetings, houses, politics, pedantics In-Reply-To: <87.3105a41.2d3601ae@aol.com> References: <87.3105a41.2d3601ae@aol.com> Message-ID: Multiple replies &c: From ReVibe68 at aol.com: >> Has there ever been a >> professional/amateur effort to graphically depict (i.e. >> draw/paint/psiprint) the animals of the 17 houses? If so, are they >> collected/accessible anywhere, and if not, why not? > > No,no,no; This is not a valid Stupid Newbie Question! > THis is a pretty simple question that I for one never bothered to even > think about. David's links were wonderful, and I thank him for them, but I therefore also take it that there has been no systematic project. I know some of the animals, even now still have mainly adjectival descriptions. > You sir have the perspicacity of a Tiassa, and moreover the piercing > inquisitiveness of an Athyra.? I salute you. Why thank you. The GIM (geek in me) truly appreciates (and has long wondered about) the categorization. I've never been sure what house I would categorize myself as, though I am temperamentally drawn to the Tiassa and Hawk (so I'm hoping one of the next Vlad novels will be so named). There should be a Myers Briggs type test for House identification. I note with interest that Steven wrote: >> I also try to steer clear of political arguments, since >> they instantly turn me into a flaming asshole. To which warbi replied: > That's okay, Steve, I already got burned a few days ago for you! And Philip replied: > The Flaming Lips - now there's a good band. Note to self - don't kiss Steven's ass in a political discussion. David wrote: > It's really quite a tragedy; Earthly revolutionary theory doesn't > actually make much sense on Dragaera, where the Empire and its > monarchy really IS ordained and protected by the gods, and controlled > by the cycle. The Teckla revolution has no chance until it's their > turn. Could not the argument be made that the Fenarians are a wildcard? They were part of the Teckla revolution, too. They worship (at least some of) the same gods and are listened to by those gods (sometimes), but they are not part of the cycle. Clearly one small group of humans (or one individual of particular interest) has caused some important ripples in the cycle (if not saved it altogether). The power to break the cycle exists even within Dragaera (Adron), but certainly the cycle can be threatened by external forces (on a grand scale by, for example, the Jenoine, and on a 'civil' scale, perhaps by Humans and Tecklas). Of course _can_ does not mean _will_. Even the Gods answer to ultimate Author-ity. Speaking of Fenarians/humans. is there any speculation on what is keeping _them_ at a medieval technology level over the many hundreds of years of the various story arcs? They always struck me as only a Renaissance away from being able to challenge Dragaeran sorcery-augmented power with conventional technology (plus witchcraft). Even the Interregnum didn't catalyze anything on the human side? Perhaps their Da Vincis have not come around yet. And again, Steven wrote: > I hate pedantic fiction. Hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. > I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of these days. I bet Paarfi would be happy to help if you could keep him from realizing he was being insulted. :-) Noam Help! - or an amazing beer. (What Noam Raphael Izenberg is in desperate need of right now) From ljenab at sunflower.com Wed Jan 14 05:42:18 2004 From: ljenab at sunflower.com (Lawrence Jenab) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 07:42:18 -0600 Subject: New Gene Wolfe Novel References: Message-ID: <002101c3daa4$3d326370$444f7c18@dell> Has anyone read it? I generally can't afford hardbacks, but when GW is on his game, other considerations fall by the wayside. LJ From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Wed Jan 14 06:22:30 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:22:30 -0500 Subject: New Gene Wolfe Novel In-Reply-To: <002101c3daa4$3d326370$444f7c18@dell> References: <002101c3daa4$3d326370$444f7c18@dell> Message-ID: <20040114142230.GA2644@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 07:42:18AM -0600, Lawrence Jenab wrote: > Has anyone read it? I generally can't afford hardbacks, but when GW is on > his game, other considerations fall by the wayside. I just completed it last night. As is usual with me and a Wolfe novel, I'll begin my second reading shortly. My first-pass impression -- Wolfe writes what is, on the surface, one of his most accessible novels. The plot is relatively straitforward, the story perks along nicely, and the book has interesting people, milieu, and plot. It can simply be read as a good novel of a boy who prematurely becomes a man and is thrust into knight-errantry. The book is highly episodic, and has a surface simplicity that combine to make it very attractive just as story. As I was reading it, I was wishing my children were 8 and 10 again so I could read it to them (with occasional Bowdlerization). But this is a Gene Wolfe novel. I won't attempt to dive below the surface (yet) for two reasons. First, Wolfe is treading some mythic ground that I'm not that deeply familiar with. There are underlying tensions and history that are probably better understood with a deeper knowledge of the milieu he uses, and that's going to take some work. Second, this is just the first half of a two-book story. The episodes do tie together, but by the end of the book I had only vague notions of where the rest of the story was going. The Arthurian legend is in there, as are a hatful of Norse and Fairie threads. Is the Grail Quest in there? Maybe. What role will Able (the central character) play in the Arthurian story? Too early to tell. And there were a few things that jarred. Wolfe is one of my favorite prosesmiths, and he works here in a voice and style that's highly appropriate for the story being told and the narrator. But... the occasional use of modern American slang is quite jarring when it happens, as Able is otherwise speaking the vernacular of the place he's in. It just doesn't fit with the rest of his dialog and tale-telling. And there are several passages where we have abrupt change in the flow of the story. It's a fairly common Wolfean thing; but it doesn't match the naively simple storytelling that Wolfe gives us from Able. But at this point I'm giving Wolfe the benefit of the doubt; it's clear that Things Are Happening Behind The Scenes and these may ultimately explain those lapses. They were nonetheless jarring, and just don't jibe with Ables otherwise straitforward narrative. Nonetheless I enjoyed it, will reread it soon, and am looking forward to 'The Wizard.' Steve Simmons -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From bio_phy at hotmail.com Wed Jan 14 07:04:47 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:04:47 -0600 Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works Message-ID: >Mariska, was never political. The attitude nagyapa (grandpa) always >presented to my father was something like, "Well, if a revolution comes >along, of course you support it, but don't go out of your way to make >trouble." Dad, of course, specialized in going out of his way to make >trouble. Ah, I feel like I know him already. I have a son, 10, who's cut from similar cloth. Nice kid. Surprisingly susceptible to reverse psychology. >Correct again. In particular, if I'm going to introduce politics into a >story, I try to make it politics that my protragonists are contemptuous of, >or at least don't agree with; my hope is that this keeps me from getting >pedantic. I hate pedantic fiction. Hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate it. > >I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of these days. Why? Just to be contrary? ;) johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations _________________________________________________________________ Find high-speed ?net deals ? comparison-shop your local providers here. https://broadband.msn.com From mneme at io.com Wed Jan 14 07:20:20 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:20:20 -0600 Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works In-Reply-To: <001401c3da7f$00f53ec0$fe00000a@steve> References: <001401c3da7f$00f53ec0$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: <16389.24116.50206.320578@fnord.io.com> Steven Brust writes: >I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of these days. Or let Paarfi do it for you... -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From mneme at io.com Wed Jan 14 07:21:46 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:21:46 -0600 Subject: New Gene Wolfe Novel In-Reply-To: <002101c3daa4$3d326370$444f7c18@dell> References: <002101c3daa4$3d326370$444f7c18@dell> Message-ID: <16389.24202.650203.607287@fnord.io.com> Lawrence Jenab writes: >Has anyone read it? I generally can't afford hardbacks, but when GW is on >his game, other considerations fall by the wayside. It's supposed to be really good. It's also the first part of the novel (I think the second will be forthcoming from Tor, and titled "The Wizard" or something). But I haven't read it (yet). -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Wed Jan 14 08:48:37 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 08:48:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works In-Reply-To: <001401c3da7f$00f53ec0$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: <20040114164837.84122.qmail@web14427.mail.yahoo.com> --- Steven Brust wrote: > > > been a "Jean Brust" of that generation, for all I know. (His parents > > came from Hungary, bringing Bill with them, in 1920, it says here, as > > a result of having been on the losing side in the 1919 Hungarian > > revoluion.) > > > > Odd...I remember being told all my life that it was '21, not 20. But > you're > right about the rest of it. My Grandfather, Zoltan Brust, was a > delegate to > his soviet (I think he worked in a bicycle factory) in the revolution of > 1919, and left when Horthy came to power. So far as I know, his wife, > Mariska, was never political. The attitude nagyapa (grandpa) Have you already mentioned whether that's pronounced something like "Noish-pa"? > always > presented to my father was something like, "Well, if a revolution comes > along, of course you support it, but don't go out of your way to make > trouble." Since that sounds kind of familiar. > Dad, of course, specialized in going out of his way to make > trouble. The other thing nagyapa used to say whenever my father screwed > up > was, "From this you make a revolution?" > > > > You don't ask about Steven's personal life in this part that I can > > see; the question of whether Kelly's group is anything like politics > > on Earth being different from the question of whether it's like > > *Steven's* politics or the politics of any other actual person. > > Authors, as you know, often write about characters and groups that > > they don't fully agree with. > > Correct again. In particular, if I'm going to introduce politics into a > story, I try to make it politics that my protragonists are contemptuous > of, > or at least don't agree with; my hope is that this keeps me from getting > pedantic. I hate pedantic fiction. Hate it. Hate it, hate it, hate > it. > > I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of these days. "Protagonists" and "blatantly". Sorry, but I had to do that. Had to. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Jan 14 09:14:14 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:14:14 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <87.3105a41.2d3601ae@aol.com> Message-ID: <13C8D4A4-46B5-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Yes, yes, I'm quasi-replying to myself. Bad, bad form, I know. Apologies all around. But, I had a Further Thought on: > Clearly one small group of humans (or one individual of > particular interest) has caused some important ripples in the Cycle > (if not > saved it altogether). One could argue that another human was at least partially responsible for the Disaster, and thus the destruction, or at least disruption, of the Cycle. - Unless Mario is not human (Don't we only have Vlad's assertions as evidence that he is?). - Unless 'humans-as-tools/weapons-of-dragaerans' doesn't count. If we accept the premise of the first paragraph, and assume that neither of those 'Unless'-es are true, then the thought comes that the Dragaerans themselves could be incapable of breaking the Cycle on their own, which could further imply some other regulatory purpose for the Cycle determined at its origin. To the left, in cloudy memory, were there other proto-houses that never made it into the cycle? On the gripping hand, even if there were, perhaps there's a reason they didn't make it. Could the Jenoine have had such a long view as to 'program' their creations in such a subtle way? Am I simply yanking my own chain? I ask forgiveness. I've not had a forum in which to express half-baked views and thoughts like this for a long time, and while it is terribly refreshing for me, it may be tedious for others. Bronze Enigma (Noam Izenberg) From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Wed Jan 14 10:21:53 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 10:21:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Greetings, houses, politics, pedantics Message-ID: <200401141821.i0EILrE22288@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> From: Noam Izenberg >I am temperamentally drawn to the >Tiassa and Hawk (so I'm hoping one of the next Vlad novels will be so >named). We've been told that the one currently in progress will be _Tiassa_. -- David Goldfarb <*>|"Poor dominoes. Your pretty empire took so long goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | to build. Now, with a snap of history's fingers... goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | down it goes." | -- Alan Moore, _V for Vendetta_ From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Jan 14 10:39:56 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:39:56 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Greetings, houses, politics, pedantics Message-ID: <0CDDC2C8-46C1-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Jan 14, 2004, at 1:21 PM, David Goldfarb wrote: > We've been told that the one currently in progress will be _Tiassa_. Eeeexcellent , though I know it will be some time, so I must be more like a- well... Hm. There is no house animal that embodies the quality of Patience. A tell? I, Brazen Gnome (Noam Izenberg) From Gaertk at aol.com Wed Jan 14 11:02:17 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:02:17 -0500 Subject: Greetings. =?ISO-8859-1?B?oFJlZ2FyZGluZyB0aGUgUG9saXRpY3Mgb2YgQnJ1c3QgYW5kIGhpcyBXb3Jrcw==?= Message-ID: <5502ED90.11AC6371.00048EA6@aol.com> "Steven Brust" writes: > I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of > these days. Like a rant about historical consistency in fantasy? --KG From Gaertk at aol.com Wed Jan 14 11:04:17 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:04:17 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Greetings, houses, politics, pedantics Message-ID: <1488EF1C.582ED40D.00048EA6@aol.com> Noam Izenberg writes: > Hm. There is no house animal that embodies the quality of > Patience. A tell? I'd guess Tsalmoth or Chreotha. --KG From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 11:17:09 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 11:17:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fwd: Greetings, houses, politics, pedantics In-Reply-To: <1488EF1C.582ED40D.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <1488EF1C.582ED40D.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > Noam Izenberg writes: > > > Hm. There is no house animal that embodies the quality of > > Patience. A tell? > > I'd guess Tsalmoth or Chreotha. Issola - don't they stand motionless waiting for a fish to appear? Note that http://world.std.com/~mam/Cracks-and-Shards/characteristics.html#table is the first place to consult on such matters. You might consider Hawk based on his calling them "observant, detached". Tsalmoth are "persistent; loyal." Creotha are "shy or easily flustered." Lyorn are surely patient. I'm sticking with Issola though. Note that even impetuous Dzur can be patient - sharpening their swords, for example. And Jhereg, carefully planning a work. From davids at kithrup.com Wed Jan 14 12:05:46 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:05:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <13C8D4A4-46B5-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > >One could argue that another human was at least partially >responsible for the Disaster, and thus the destruction, or at >least disruption, of the Cycle. > >- Unless Mario is not human (Don't we only have Vlad's assertions >as evidence that he is?). Er. Human in which sense? You perceive, it is confusing to use that particular term, since both Dragaerans and Easterners call themselves "human". We have Paarfi of Roundwood's history, which firmly describes Mario as being a Jhereg, which is to say, a Dragaeran Jhereg. We know that Mario is defintely a Dragaeran, because he is little more than 100 years old (FHYA, chapter 19) and is still considered very young. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 12:16:09 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:16:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > > > > >One could argue that another human was at least partially > >responsible for the Disaster, and thus the destruction, or at > >least disruption, of the Cycle. > > > >- Unless Mario is not human (Don't we only have Vlad's assertions > >as evidence that he is?). > > Er. Human in which sense? You perceive, it is confusing to use that > particular term, since both Dragaerans and Easterners call themselves > "human". > > We have Paarfi of Roundwood's history, which firmly describes Mario as > being a Jhereg, which is to say, a Dragaeran Jhereg. We know that > Mario is defintely a Dragaeran, because he is little more than 100 > years old (FHYA, chapter 19) and is still considered very young. I've long thought that the important bits of _FHYA_ were ghost written (vampire written?) by Sethra, who is notably Eastern-tolerant. Even in _TPG_ Paarfi paints very sympathetic pictures of the two main Eastern characters. And everyone will have noted the strong (no, obsessional) pro-hybrid theme of the Piroiad. It just occurred to me that Sethra, who habitually falls into old modes of speech, is the original mixed breed... From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Jan 14 12:28:01 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 15:28:01 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <265FE5DA-46D0-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Jan 14, 2004, at 3:05 PM, David Silberstein wrote: > Er. Human in which sense? You perceive, it is confusing to use that > particular term, since both Dragaerans and Easterners call themselves > "human". So I'm an Easterner snob. Human = Easterner. I was born in Boston, so it is perfectly logical to me. A always knew the Californians were Something Else... > We have Paarfi of Roundwood's history, which firmly describes Mario as > being a Jhereg, which is to say, a Dragaeran Jhereg. We know that > Mario is defintely a Dragaeran, because he is little more than 100 > years old (FHYA, chapter 19) and is still considered very young. Sigh. Time to re-read everything (have to finish POTD first, though). I always had it in my head he was Eastern. Maybe the name fooled me or overrode more explicit references. I guess I read FHYA too long ago. There goes my premise, anyway. Bizarre Non-Gem (Noam Izenberg - not too bright, but at least strange) From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Jan 14 12:28:51 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:28:51 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8h9b001svdc1g6feq92jfr8efehabh2g76@4ax.com> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:16:09 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >I've long thought that the important bits of _FHYA_ were ghost written >(vampire written?) by Sethra, who is notably Eastern-tolerant. Even in >_TPG_ Paarfi paints very sympathetic pictures of the two main Eastern >characters. And everyone will have noted the strong (no, obsessional) >pro-hybrid theme of the Piroiad. It just occurred to me that Sethra, who >habitually falls into old modes of speech, is the original mixed breed... And has anyone actually seen Paarfi and Sethra in the same room together? Or Paarfi and ? And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to survive all those duels over the years? -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Jan 14 12:30:18 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 15:30:18 -0500 Subject: Greetings, houses, politics, pedantics In-Reply-To: References: <1488EF1C.582ED40D.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <77FF5729-46D0-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: >> Noam Izenberg writes: >>> Hm. There is no house animal that embodies the quality of >>> Patience. >> I'd guess Tsalmoth or Chreotha. Heh. Unpredictability and Tenacity - That's my three year old son. Not the archetype of patience, he. On Jan 14, 2004, at 2:17 PM, Philip Hart wrote: > Issola - don't they stand motionless waiting for a fish to appear? > > Note that > http://world.std.com/~mam/Cracks-and-Shards/characteristics.html#table > is the first place to consult on such matters. You might consider Hawk > based on his calling them "observant, detached". Tsalmoth are > "persistent; loyal." Creotha are "shy or easily flustered." Lyorn are > surely patient. > > I'm sticking with Issola though. Looking at that list, and in this context, I agree, it's got to be Issola or Hawk. Actually one then the other. Hawk for now, since remaining detached will prevent wheedling, and later, Issola, to be ready to snatch the fish when it's appearance is expected to be imminent. > Note that even impetuous Dzur can be patient - sharpening their swords, > for example. And Jhereg, carefully planning a work. Hm. I was too generic before, then. There are many types of patience represented. Still not one really reflecting the patience of endurance, IMO, but Hawk for now fits, and works doubly for me. Big Name Zoner (Noam Izenberg - Known throughout the Zone) From jtrager at keyway.net Wed Jan 14 12:43:14 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (Trager) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:43:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> > > And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to > survive all those duels over the years? > That's easy... It's the deep dark secret that Monsieur Brust doesn't want you to find out -- Paarfi is Mario. From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Jan 14 13:18:30 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:18:30 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:43:14 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >> >> And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to >> survive all those duels over the years? >> > >That's easy... It's the deep dark secret that Monsieur Brust doesn't >want you to find out -- Paarfi is Mario. > Nope. I am now convinced, without a shred of evidence whatsoever, that he's Sethra. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 13:20:37 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:20:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:43:14 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > >> > >> And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to > >> survive all those duels over the years? > >> > > > >That's easy... It's the deep dark secret that Monsieur Brust doesn't > >want you to find out -- Paarfi is Mario. > > > > Nope. I am now convinced, without a shred of evidence whatsoever, > that he's Sethra. You have the evidence that I'm pushing the theory... From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Jan 14 13:23:50 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:23:50 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:20:37 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > >On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > >> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:43:14 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >> >> >> >> >> And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to >> >> survive all those duels over the years? >> >> >> > >> >That's easy... It's the deep dark secret that Monsieur Brust doesn't >> >want you to find out -- Paarfi is Mario. >> > >> >> Nope. I am now convinced, without a shred of evidence whatsoever, >> that he's Sethra. > >You have the evidence that I'm pushing the theory... There is that. I am now convince, on Philip's testimony, that Paarfi is Sethra. :-D -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Jan 14 13:34:10 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:34:10 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: <64137BBE-46D9-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Jan 14, 2004, at 4:23 PM, lazarus wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:20:37 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: >>> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:43:14 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >>>>> And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to >>>>> survive all those duels over the years? >>>> That's easy... It's the deep dark secret that Monsieur Brust >>>> doesn't >>>> want you to find out -- Paarfi is Mario. >>> Nope. I am now convinced, without a shred of evidence whatsoever, >>> that he's Sethra. >> You have the evidence that I'm pushing the theory... > There is that. I am now convince, on Philip's testimony, that Paarfi > is Sethra. :-D Great. Imperials to doughnuts, somewhere, sometime we'll have a scene narrated by Paarfi where Sethra talks to Mario, in which we will learn exactly nothing. "Harmonize, rebel pagan! " (Noam Raphael Izenberg - conducting the Druid Liberation Choir) From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 13:58:32 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:58:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <64137BBE-46D9-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> <64137BBE-46D9-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > > On Jan 14, 2004, at 4:23 PM, lazarus wrote: > > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:20:37 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > >> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > >>> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:43:14 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > >>>>> And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to > >>>>> survive all those duels over the years? > >>>> That's easy... It's the deep dark secret that Monsieur Brust > >>>> doesn't > >>>> want you to find out -- Paarfi is Mario. > >>> Nope. I am now convinced, without a shred of evidence whatsoever, > >>> that he's Sethra. > >> You have the evidence that I'm pushing the theory... > > There is that. I am now convince, on Philip's testimony, that Paarfi > > is Sethra. :-D > > Great. Imperials to doughnuts, somewhere, sometime we'll > have a scene narrated by Paarfi where Sethra talks to Mario, in > which we will learn exactly nothing. Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. Also note that in my version of the Disaster Sethra invents Mario as a cover for her murder of Tortaalik. In that weak sense Mario is Sethra. From matthew at infodancer.org Wed Jan 14 14:01:23 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:01:23 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> <64137BBE-46D9-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <20040114220123.GC13020@infodancer.org> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 01:58:32PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > > On Jan 14, 2004, at 4:23 PM, lazarus wrote: > > > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:20:37 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > >> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > > >>> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:43:14 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > >>>>> And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to > > >>>>> survive all those duels over the years? > > >>>> That's easy... It's the deep dark secret that Monsieur Brust > > >>>> doesn't > > >>>> want you to find out -- Paarfi is Mario. > > >>> Nope. I am now convinced, without a shred of evidence whatsoever, > > >>> that he's Sethra. > > >> You have the evidence that I'm pushing the theory... > > > There is that. I am now convince, on Philip's testimony, that Paarfi > > > is Sethra. :-D > > Great. Imperials to doughnuts, somewhere, sometime we'll > > have a scene narrated by Paarfi where Sethra talks to Mario, in > > which we will learn exactly nothing. > Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. > Also note that in my version of the Disaster Sethra invents Mario as a > cover for her murder of Tortaalik. In that weak sense Mario is Sethra. Which nicely provides a motive for , especially if you credit Sethra with a little foresight. I like it. But Mario is still Kragar. ;) -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From davids at kithrup.com Wed Jan 14 14:18:10 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:18:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > >Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. Well, yeah, but he's said a lot of things, and what does he know about it all anyway? >Also note that in my version of the Disaster Sethra invents Mario as >a cover for her murder of Tortaalik. In that weak sense Mario is >Sethra. But... if that's the case, then who was Aliera boinking in /Jhereg/? [ thinks through implications ] Oh. Oh, my. Oh, deary me. You know, all of that duel-provocation *does* seem to be a way of strongly hinting at a certain degree of sexual tension, now that I think about it... From agrajag at dragaera.net Wed Jan 14 14:35:07 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:35:07 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1074119707.4307.71.camel@pel> On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 17:18, David Silberstein wrote: > But... if that's the case, then who was Aliera boinking in /Jhereg/? Remember, they did become close friends during TPG. My new pet theory of choice.. Sethra is really..... everyone! That's right. Everyone in the series is really just a different part of Sethra's multi-layered subconscious. The whole series is just a bunch of stories acted out in Sethra's subconscious to try to give a lonely woman some entertainment. Seriously, wouldn't you go somewhat bonkers if you lived in the same mountain for over a 100,000 years? From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 14:37:46 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:37:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > > > >Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. > > Well, yeah, but he's said a lot of things, and what does he know > about it all anyway? > > >Also note that in my version of the Disaster Sethra invents Mario as > >a cover for her murder of Tortaalik. In that weak sense Mario is > >Sethra. > > But... if that's the case, then who was Aliera boinking in /Jhereg/? > > [ thinks through implications ] > > Oh. Oh, my. Oh, deary me. > > You know, all of that duel-provocation *does* seem to be a way of > strongly hinting at a certain degree of sexual tension, now that I > think about it... Exactly. It would be beneath Sethra's dignity to bop someone practically a child - but she could put on her Mario-mask. This might also explain Morrollan's conspicuous lack of a paramour in Vlad's time... From agrajag at dragaera.net Wed Jan 14 14:50:51 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:50:51 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1074120651.8673.0.camel@pel> On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 17:37, Philip Hart wrote: > This might also explain Morrollan's conspicuous lack of a paramour in > Vlad's time... I seem to recall Morrollan having someone in Vlad's time. Her name's Verra :) From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Jan 14 14:56:07 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:56:07 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: You folk think WAYYYY too much of Mario. As an assassin, to steal from Tolkien, the tale grew with the telling. He did not appear to be anything other than a talented young man who came up with a good plan. He had one good strike. He disappeared. He is not a master-assassin except in the minds of historians. Frankly, I think his greatest coup was not killing the emperor, but rather scoring with the heiress! Now THAT was an act of exceptional talent. On Jan 14, 2004, at 3:43 PM, Trager wrote: >> >> And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to >> survive all those duels over the years? >> > > That's easy... It's the deep dark secret that Monsieur Brust doesn't > want you to find out -- Paarfi is Mario. > > From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 14:56:27 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:56:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <1074120651.8673.0.camel@pel> References: <1074120651.8673.0.camel@pel> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Jag wrote: > On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 17:37, Philip Hart wrote: > > > This might also explain Morrollan's conspicuous lack of a paramour in > > Vlad's time... > > I seem to recall Morrollan having someone in Vlad's time. Her name's > Verra :) In Greek mythology, the gods got lucky a lot with humans, often wandering around earth disguised as homo sapiens or other, wait for it, animals... From casey at the-bat.net Wed Jan 14 15:17:03 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:17:03 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Philip Hart wrote: > Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. Noone else has pointed this out but in the most careful elaboration Steve has made on this comment, there were qualifiers. See below. (This was a response to Matthew Hunter commenting on Zerika being in "disguise.") On Wednesday, December 04, 2002 9:02 AM Steven Brust wrote: > Er, what are you talking about? No character in the Vlad > novels is secretly another character in the Vlad novels, at > least that I know of. No character in the Vlad novels is > secretly a character in any of my other novels, at least that > I know of. No character in any of my other novels is > secretly a character in any of the Vlad novels, at least that > I know of. > > I think that covers it. From casca913 at gbronline.com Wed Jan 14 16:26:20 2004 From: casca913 at gbronline.com (Charlie Smith) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:26:20 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> <64137BBE-46D9-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <004301c3dafe$356621e0$10d1fdd8@pentium4> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philip Hart" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 3:58 PM Subject: Re: Humans and the Cycle > > > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > > > > > On Jan 14, 2004, at 4:23 PM, lazarus wrote: > > > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:20:37 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > >> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > > >>> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:43:14 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > >>>>> And just how /has/ Paarfi managed to be that good a swordsman, to > > >>>>> survive all those duels over the years? > > >>>> That's easy... It's the deep dark secret that Monsieur Brust > > >>>> doesn't > > >>>> want you to find out -- Paarfi is Mario. > > >>> Nope. I am now convinced, without a shred of evidence whatsoever, > > >>> that he's Sethra. > > >> You have the evidence that I'm pushing the theory... > > > There is that. I am now convince, on Philip's testimony, that Paarfi > > > is Sethra. :-D > > > > Great. Imperials to doughnuts, somewhere, sometime we'll > > have a scene narrated by Paarfi where Sethra talks to Mario, in > > which we will learn exactly nothing. > > > Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. It becomes hard to trust such statements after Orca... Of course it is obvious when you go through and reread all the Vladiad... From davids at kithrup.com Wed Jan 14 16:49:57 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:49:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <004301c3dafe$356621e0$10d1fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Charlie Smith wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Philip Hart" > > >> Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. > >It becomes hard to trust such statements after Orca... Of >course it is obvious when you go through and reread all the >Vladiad... > The reason it says "else" is specifically because the statement was made *after* /Orca/, and was meant to exclude the revelation in that one particular book. Of course, the disclaimers about "as far as he knows" means that he might well come up with a better idea, which is true for all authors. And after all, if he comes up with such a better idea, he wouldn't want to spoil it by giving it away ahead of time, now would he? From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 16:58:47 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 16:58:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Charlie Smith wrote: > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Philip Hart" > > > > > >> Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. > > > >It becomes hard to trust such statements after Orca... Of > >course it is obvious when you go through and reread all the > >Vladiad... > > > > The reason it says "else" is specifically because the statement was > made *after* /Orca/, and was meant to exclude the revelation in that > one particular book. > > Of course, the disclaimers about "as far as he knows" means that he > might well come up with a better idea, which is true for all authors. > And after all, if he comes up with such a better idea, he wouldn't > want to spoil it by giving it away ahead of time, now would he? Given that I think Mario's a figment or dead, when SKZB has said ex cathedra (or ex sofa or wherever) that he lives, from my point of view it would reverse spoil the revelation to give it away now. Should SKZB come out with a statement confirming my Sethra-killed- Tortaalik hypothesis, I pledge to publicly, streunously disavow it. From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Wed Jan 14 20:47:37 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 20:47:37 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <200401142047.AA38666598@amish2000.com> From: Noam Izenberg Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 15:28:01 -0500 >So I'm an Easterner snob. Human = Easterner. I was born in Boston, so it >is perfectly logical to me. A always knew the Californians were >Something >Else... ... you know what? California boasts the Ninja Capital of the World, Death Valley (which sounds as if it should be Dragaeran, but Vlad would pitch a hissy at the sheer unreasonableness of the heat), the San Diego Zoo, AND OUR GOVERNOR CAN BEAT UP YOURS. Also, I live here. Therefore California is the most human place ever. Alsoalso, we have an official Daymar Fanclub, even if there are only two dues-paying members. ? MJ, Daymar Fanclub Secretary From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 18:16:43 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:16:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <200401142047.AA38666598@amish2000.com> References: <200401142047.AA38666598@amish2000.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, M J wrote: > Alsoalso, we have an official Daymar Fanclub, even if there > are only two dues-paying members. Do you pay your dues in a, uh, speakable currency? From Noam.Izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Jan 14 18:18:15 2004 From: Noam.Izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Izenberg, Noam) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:18:15 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: >>I always knew the Californians were >>Something Else... >... you know what?? California boasts the Ninja Capital of the >World, Death Valley (which sounds as if it should be >Dragaeran, but Vlad would pitch a hissy at the sheer >unreasonableness of the heat), the San Diego Zoo, AND OUR >GOVERNOR CAN BEAT UP YOURS. Would he, please? I live in Maryland now. Atlantic is Almost Eastern. By the way, I think your governor is Mario. >Also, I live here.? Therefore California is the most human >place ever. I rest my case, Dragaerans (and Californians) call themselves Human. It's OK with me, though. I have good friends who are Californians. >Alsoalso, we have an official Daymar Fanclub, even if there >are only two dues-paying members. Well. That tears it. You win. Alpha Men Earn Big Zero (Noam Raphael Izenberg does not like Alpha Men) From ReVibe68 at aol.com Wed Jan 14 18:23:43 2004 From: ReVibe68 at aol.com (ReVibe68 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:23:43 EST Subject: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <159.2bae4086.2d3753af@aol.com> In a message dated 1/14/04 6:17:33 PM Eastern Standard Time, casey at the-bat.net writes: > > Er, what are you talking about? No character in the Vlad > > novels is secretly another character in the Vlad novels, at > > least that I know of. No character in the Vlad novels is > > secretly a character in any of my other novels, at least that > > I know of. No character in any of my other novels is > > secretly a character in any of the Vlad novels, at least that > > I know of. > Not that I'm going to impugn the words ofSKZB; But didn't Sethra "moonlight" as Kiera The Thief for most of the books in the Vladiad?? IF she could do it why wouldn't another character like say......Mario or.....Zerika?? From warbi at warbi.net Wed Jan 14 21:12:12 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:12:12 -0800 Subject: Fw: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <014201c3db26$23995f40$3dadfea9@warbi> Ninjas are merely samurai in training. The samurai used them as spies and assassins because it would besmirch the samurai's honor to do so. Your governor has Nazi ties. ;-) warbi From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 19:33:12 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 19:33:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <3F63A339-46FB-11D8-AAA4-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <3F63A339-46FB-11D8-AAA4-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > > > > Given that I think Mario's a figment or dead, when SKZB has said > > ex cathedra (or ex sofa or wherever) that he lives, from my point > > of view it would reverse spoil the revelation to give it away now. > > Should SKZB come out with a statement confirming my Sethra-killed- > > Tortaalik hypothesis, I pledge to publicly, streunously disavow it. > > > > > Uh, maybe this is a stupid question, but what is Sethra's motivation to > kill Tortaalik? > > I mean, we all know she doesn't like him, but in Five Hundred Years > After, doesn't she explicitly say that she wouldn't join Adron because > she wouldn't fight against the cycle, even though she would fight > against the empire. Since Tortaalik was the true phoenix emperor > (although decadent), wouldn't that pit Sethra against the cycle, and > that's not something she would do? Hi. You may find a different or more cogent version of the following by grepping the list archives for my sparse postings, but anyway: I'm positing a rather more Machiavellian Sethra than portrayed elsewhere (well, _Taltos_ supports me). In my version of events, Sethra sees Adron's spell, realizes it may destroy the Orb, and decides that since Adron would anyway make a better emperor (as would any breathing Dragon) (and since it would make Aliera really happy and grateful) she might as well save a lot of bloodshed by taking out Tortaalik. She arranges with Khaavren to do it, perhaps with Aliera's help. Unfortunately Adron acts sooner than she expected, and boom (saving her the trouble of killing the witnesses). It's possible she was told to get into the mess by the gods, who wanted to get their hands on the Orb and reorganize Dragaeran society. A few hundred years later, she pays a call on a hack historian and tells him to write up the story as a tragedy in which she comes off as super- human and highly moral (above screwing with the Cycle). Why go to the trouble? Perhaps she wants to move in human society again, perhaps she wants to be able to assemble a larger army against the J under her banner. Maybe we'll be better able to constrain this theory when The Enchantress of Dzur Mountain comes out this spring. > > -Jeff > From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 14 19:55:48 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 19:55:48 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <3F63A339-46FB-11D8-AAA4-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: > I'm positing a rather more Machiavellian Sethra than portrayed > elsewhere > (well, _Taltos_ supports me). But if Sethra were truly a Machiavellian person, she would try to seize power for herself, or through someone she could control. I think FHA clearly demonstrates that Adron isn't too easily constrained. > In my version of events, Sethra sees > Adron's spell, realizes it may destroy the Orb, and decides that since > Adron would anyway make a better emperor (as would any breathing > Dragon) Why would it be more beneficial to have a Dragon on the throne in Sethra's eyes? If Sethra's mission or purpose is really to protect the empire from the Jenoine (I'm pretty Issola more or less explicitly says that) then what advantage is there to have a Dragon on the throne trying to conquer more land in the east? That would spread resources thin, wouldn't you think? And thus make it harder for her to protect. > (and since it would make Aliera really happy and grateful) she might as > well save a lot of bloodshed by taking out Tortaalik. She arranges > with > Khaavren to do it, perhaps with Aliera's help. It seems as if through the entire Khaavren and Piro series that Khaavren was entirely devoted to his duty of protecting the emperor. Isn't a bit of a stretch that Khaavren helped to assasinate the man he worked for five hundred years? Wouldn't he have had a better chance by then? I do agree though, I have a feeling all this will be better answered when Enchantress comes out. -Jeff From mam at theworld.com Wed Jan 14 19:42:36 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:42:36 -0500 Subject: Fw: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <014201c3db26$23995f40$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, warbi wrote: # Ninjas are merely samurai in training. The samurai used them as spies and #assassins because it would besmirch the samurai's honor to do so. # Your governor has Nazi ties. ;-) warbi And Stalinist cufflinks... -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Wed Jan 14 23:08:07 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:08:07 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <200401142308.AA10486274@amish2000.com> From: Philip Hart Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:16:43 -0800 (PST) >On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, M J wrote: > >> Alsoalso, we have an official Daymar Fanclub, even if there >> are only two dues-paying members. > >Do you pay your dues in a, uh, speakable currency? Well, so far, it's all going into the Club Treasury. We're saving up for those fifty copies of the hardcover _Hawk_ and assorted paperback loan-copies, see. ? MJ From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Wed Jan 14 23:11:55 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:11:55 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <200401142311.AA16777726@amish2000.com> From: "Izenberg, Noam" Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:18:15 -0500 >>>I always knew the Californians were >>>Something Else... >>... you know what?? California boasts the Ninja Capital of the >>World, Death Valley (which sounds as if it should be >>Dragaeran, but Vlad would pitch a hissy at the sheer >>unreasonableness of the heat), the San Diego Zoo, AND OUR >>GOVERNOR CAN BEAT UP YOURS. > >Would he, please? I live in Maryland now. Atlantic is Almost Eastern. Oooooh. See, that's the trick, though. We take great pride in boasting that he CAN beat up any other state governor (it's either make outlandish boasts or cry in sheer mortification), but we don't know any way of making him actually do it. >By the way, I think your governor is Mario. Naaaah. Too big, loud, and conspicuous, and also Aliera would go "EW" at him. >>Also, I live here.? Therefore California is the most human >>place ever. > >I rest my case, Dragaerans (and Californians) call themselves Human. YAY yes we do. >It's OK with me, though. I have good friends who are Californians. ... me too. >>Alsoalso, we have an official Daymar Fanclub, even if there >>are only two dues-paying members. > >Well. That tears it. You win. Daymar _is_ the ultimate Trump Card, being the glompiest thing ever. ? MJ From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Wed Jan 14 23:16:01 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:16:01 -0800 Subject: Fw: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <200401142316.AA1409679650@amish2000.com> From: Mark A Mandel Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 22:42:36 -0500 >On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, warbi wrote: > ># Ninjas are merely samurai in training. The samurai used them as spies and >#assassins because it would besmirch the samurai's honor to do so. ># Your governor has Nazi ties. ;-) warbi > >And Stalinist cufflinks... AND a Kennedy wife! Who, I hear, picks out his shoes. As for ninja, all California ninjas are larval _cable- thieves_. I don't know _what_ the Japanese do with their ninja, but clearly it's not as cool or beneficial to society as getting free cable for their friends. ? MJ From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 14 18:36:24 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:36:24 -0800 Subject: Fwd: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <9C765190-4703-11D8-9A68-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> From: Jeffrey Kiok Date: January 14, 2004 5:36:32 PM PST To: Philip Hart Subject: Re: Humans and the Cycle > > Given that I think Mario's a figment or dead, when SKZB has said > ex cathedra (or ex sofa or wherever) that he lives, from my point > of view it would reverse spoil the revelation to give it away now. > Should SKZB come out with a statement confirming my Sethra-killed- > Tortaalik hypothesis, I pledge to publicly, streunously disavow it. > > Uh, maybe this is a stupid question, but what is Sethra's motivation to kill Tortaalik? I mean, we all know she doesn't like, but in Five Hundred Years After, doesn't she explicitly say that she wouldn't join Adron because she wouldn't fight against the cycle, even though she would fight against the empire. Since Tortaalik was the true phoenix emperor (although decadent), wouldn't that pit Sethra against the cycle, and that's not something she would do? -Jeff From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 20:30:49 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 20:30:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <200401142308.AA10486274@amish2000.com> References: <200401142308.AA10486274@amish2000.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, M J wrote: > > From: Philip Hart > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:16:43 -0800 (PST) > > >On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, M J wrote: > > > >> Alsoalso, we have an official Daymar Fanclub, even if there > >> are only two dues-paying members. > > > >Do you pay your dues in a, uh, speakable currency? > > Well, so far, it's all going into the Club Treasury. We're > saving up for those fifty copies of the hardcover _Hawk_ and > assorted paperback loan-copies, see. Never mind, I've been thinking too much about Lovecraft lately (saw someone misspell "Catholic" as "Ctaholic", interpreted as "someone addicted to HPL"). From davids at kithrup.com Wed Jan 14 20:36:05 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 20:36:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: >> I'm positing a rather more Machiavellian Sethra than portrayed >> elsewhere (well, _Taltos_ supports me). > >But if Sethra were truly a Machiavellian person, she would try to seize >power for herself, or through someone she could control. I think FHA >clearly demonstrates that Adron isn't too easily constrained. You're forgetting that the whole point of the theory is that FHYA is Sethra-generated propaganda. >> In my version of events, Sethra sees Adron's spell, realizes it >> may destroy the Orb, and decides that since Adron would anyway make >> a better emperor (as would any breathing Dragon) > >Why would it be more beneficial to have a Dragon on the throne in >Sethra's eyes? If Sethra's mission or purpose is really to protect >the empire from the Jenoine (I'm pretty Issola more or less >explicitly says that) then what advantage is there to have a Dragon >on the throne trying to conquer more land in the east? That would >spread resources thin, wouldn't you think? And thus make it harder >for her to protect. Military adventures will help to unify the country, of course, and put the whole country on a military footing. Loot from the East will enrich the treasury. Easterners who become citizens will increase the workforce, and be cannon fodder agains the Jenoine. Etc. >> (and since it would make Aliera really happy and grateful) she might >> as well save a lot of bloodshed by taking out Tortaalik. She >> arranges with Khaavren to do it, perhaps with Aliera's help. > >It seems as if through the entire Khaavren and Piro series that >Khaavren was entirely devoted to his duty of protecting the emperor. Again: The whole point of the series is propaganda to disguise what really happened. Khaavren is being painted in the best possible light. You really need to turn your Paranoia [1] up to 11. Assume that nothing is as it seems. Assume that everyone has a hidden agenda. Assume that everyone is lying. Indulge in creative pararectal ideation. Some guy with the initials "SKZB" posted about conspiracy theories in July 2002, which may or may not be germane. [1] Beware of mutants. The Computer is your Friend. From warbi at warbi.net Wed Jan 14 23:02:54 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 23:02:54 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <003b01c3db35$9af36d60$3dadfea9@warbi> > Never mind, I've been thinking too much about Lovecraft lately > (saw someone misspell "Catholic" as "Ctaholic", interpreted as > "someone addicted to HPL"). Wouldn't that be Cthulhu? Haha- happens to be the name of my parrot. I would just love to see the Pope stop the Popemobile and get out shouting "Yog-Soggoth, Nylarthotep, come, come..." all the while frothing at the mouth!!! lol warbi From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 14 21:26:07 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:26:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <3F63A339-46FB-11D8-AAA4-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: David has answered the questions below, but more p.r. ideation is possible: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > > I'm positing a rather more Machiavellian Sethra than portrayed > > elsewhere > > (well, _Taltos_ supports me). > > But if Sethra were truly a Machiavellian person, she would try to seize > power for herself, or through someone she could control. I think FHA > clearly demonstrates that Adron isn't too easily constrained. Sethra has no need to control the Orb given her crazy skillz. Adron would agree on her about most points anyway - she's doing his daughter, she works for the god he provides special services to... > > In my version of events, Sethra sees > > Adron's spell, realizes it may destroy the Orb, and decides that since > > Adron would anyway make a better emperor (as would any breathing > > Dragon) > > Why would it be more beneficial to have a Dragon on the throne in > Sethra's eyes? If Sethra's mission or purpose is really to protect the > empire from the Jenoine (I'm pretty Issola more or less explicitly says > that) then what advantage is there to have a Dragon on the throne > trying to conquer more land in the east? That would spread resources > thin, wouldn't you think? And thus make it harder for her to protect. Adron is a particularly powerful Dragon - one could imagine him crafting Elder Sorcery to use against the J. I doubt he would launch an expedition against the East (though some possibly non-canonical stuff in _Yendi_ might suggest he wouldn't oppose one). Note also that as far as we know (to the best of my recollection, and I'm too lazy to check Alexx's timeline), the J hadn't stirred in ages, and their activity in Vlad's time is a result of being stirred up by the Disaster. Anyway, Tortaalik was in and of himself a disaster, and Sethra would have been happy to have seen a Teckla on the throne. > > (and since it would make Aliera really happy and grateful) she might as > > well save a lot of bloodshed by taking out Tortaalik. She arranges > > with > > Khaavren to do it, perhaps with Aliera's help. > > It seems as if through the entire Khaavren and Piro series that > Khaavren was entirely devoted to his duty of protecting the emperor. Remember, up is down, black is white - get with the times. > Isn't a bit of a stretch that Khaavren helped to assasinate the man he > worked for five hundred years? Wouldn't he have had a better chance by > then? K didn't have cause until then, nor the knowledge. If you prefer, the whole theory works exactly the same with a Paarfian K and Sethra setting up an actual Mario to make the first futile attack on T. From skzb at dreamcafe.com Thu Jan 15 00:40:43 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:40:43 -0800 Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works References: <20040114164837.84122.qmail@web14427.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <005201c3db43$478fbd00$fe00000a@steve> The attitude nagyapa (grandpa) > > Have you already mentioned whether that's pronounced something like > "Noish-pa"? > I suppose nagypapa or nagyapa could turn in to noish-pa given enough time. The Hungarian "gy" is pronounced like the "j" in "juice." From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Thu Jan 15 00:48:25 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:48:25 -0800 Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works In-Reply-To: <005201c3db43$478fbd00$fe00000a@steve> References: <20040114164837.84122.qmail@web14427.mail.yahoo.com> <005201c3db43$478fbd00$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:40:43 -0800, you wrote: > The attitude nagyapa (grandpa) >> >> Have you already mentioned whether that's pronounced something like >> "Noish-pa"? >> > >I suppose nagypapa or nagyapa could turn in to noish-pa given enough time. Or enough fine Fenarian brandy? -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From skzb at dreamcafe.com Thu Jan 15 00:35:18 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:35:18 -0800 Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works References: Message-ID: <004901c3db42$db71d220$fe00000a@steve> > >I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of these days. > > Why? Just to be contrary? ;) > Well, pretty much, yes. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Jan 15 01:09:15 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 01:09:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: question for SKZB In-Reply-To: <005201c3db43$478fbd00$fe00000a@steve> References: <20040114164837.84122.qmail@web14427.mail.yahoo.com> <005201c3db43$478fbd00$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: I just reread the scene in _TLoCB_ where Morrolan comes upon the ruins of his ancestral home and I thought, wouldn't there be nothing but dust left if a castle free-fell from a mile in the sky? And I remembered Paarfi's poignant words about the castles that fell in the Disaster. Then I wondered, what did SKZB feel seeing his imagined catastrophe take real form on 11 Sept 2001? None of my business of course. I don't know if I've once been entirely happy since that day. From skzb at dreamcafe.com Thu Jan 15 00:42:32 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:42:32 -0800 Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_Greetings._=A0Regarding_the_Politics_of_Brust_and_his_?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?Works?= References: <5502ED90.11AC6371.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <006a01c3db43$8633cf60$fe00000a@steve> > "Steven Brust" writes: > > > I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of > > these days. > > Like a rant about historical consistency in fantasy? > That got cancelled. In the effort of trying to organize my thoughts on the subject, and speaking with Niel about it, I realized that I was full of shit. So I didn't write it. Possibly a distant offshoot will appear someday. From skzb at dreamcafe.com Thu Jan 15 00:53:46 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:53:46 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> <64137BBE-46D9-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <004301c3dafe$356621e0$10d1fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: <00f601c3db45$17315040$fe00000a@steve> > > Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. > > > It becomes hard to trust such statements after Orca... Of course it is > obvious when you go through and reread all the Vladiad... For God's sake, why? I said that after Orca. Sheesh. From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Thu Jan 15 05:29:33 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 08:29:33 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> <64137BBE-46D9-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <20040115132933.GA5130@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 01:58:32PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > > Great. Imperials to doughnuts, somewhere, sometime we'll > > have a scene narrated by Paarfi where Sethra talks to Mario, in > > which we will learn exactly nothing. > Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. Well then, if no-one is anyone else, then everyone must be the same one. Therefore we're all Mario. And Sethra. Boy, are we in trouble. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Thu Jan 15 05:31:11 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 08:31:11 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <1074120651.8673.0.camel@pel> References: <1074120651.8673.0.camel@pel> Message-ID: <20040115133111.GB5130@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 05:50:51PM -0500, Jag wrote: > On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 17:37, Philip Hart wrote: > > This might also explain Morrollan's conspicuous lack of a paramour in > > Vlad's time... > I seem to recall Morrollan having someone in Vlad's time. Her name's > Verra :) So you're saying Aliera might have a half-brother or -sister some day? -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Thu Jan 15 05:32:54 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 08:32:54 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040115133254.GC5130@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 06:17:03PM -0500, Casey Rousseau wrote: > Philip Hart wrote: > > Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. > Noone else has pointed this out but in the most careful elaboration Steve > has made on this comment, there were qualifiers. See below. (This was a > response to Matthew Hunter commenting on Zerika being in "disguise.") > On Wednesday, December 04, 2002 9:02 AM Steven Brust > wrote: > > Er, what are you talking about? No character in the Vlad > > novels is secretly another character in the Vlad novels, at > > least that I know of. No character in the Vlad novels is > > secretly a character in any of my other novels, at least that > > I know of. No character in any of my other novels is > > secretly a character in any of the Vlad novels, at least that > > I know of. > > > > I think that covers it. Since 'secret' means that nobody knows except the people involved, if Brust knows and told only one other person, it's not secret. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Thu Jan 15 05:35:40 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 08:35:40 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <3F63A339-46FB-11D8-AAA4-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040115133540.GD5130@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 07:55:48PM -0800, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > >I'm positing a rather more Machiavellian Sethra than portrayed > >elsewhere (well, _Taltos_ supports me). > But if Sethra were truly a Machiavellian person, she would try to seize > power for herself, or through someone she could control. I think FHA > clearly demonstrates that Adron isn't too easily constrained. You're assuming she wants power. Better to be the power behind the throne rather than the target on it, tho. My theory is that Sethra wants to settle the problems that hold her here so she can die. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From bonham15 at cox.net Thu Jan 15 06:23:10 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 08:23:10 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle References: <200401142311.AA16777726@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <004201c3db73$1aae7a30$33856044@user79dn2jmjai> hmm. jesse ventura *was* a navy seal before he decided do clown around, so he may have been the most dangerous governor ever. arnolds real life combat skills pretty much haven't gone past lifting heavy things and trying to look pretty. andy >>>I always knew the Californians were >>>Something Else... >>... you know what? California boasts the Ninja Capital of the >>World, Death Valley (which sounds as if it should be >>Dragaeran, but Vlad would pitch a hissy at the sheer >>unreasonableness of the heat), the San Diego Zoo, AND OUR >>GOVERNOR CAN BEAT UP YOURS. > >Would he, please? I live in Maryland now. Atlantic is Almost Eastern. Oooooh. See, that's the trick, though. We take great pride in boasting that he CAN beat up any other state governor (it's either make outlandish boasts or cry in sheer mortification), but we don't know any way of making him actually do it. >By the way, I think your governor is Mario. Naaaah. Too big, loud, and conspicuous, and also Aliera would go "EW" at him. >>Also, I live here. Therefore California is the most human >>place ever. > >I rest my case, Dragaerans (and Californians) call themselves Human. YAY yes we do. >It's OK with me, though. I have good friends who are Californians. ... me too. >>Alsoalso, we have an official Daymar Fanclub, even if there >>are only two dues-paying members. > >Well. That tears it. You win. Daymar _is_ the ultimate Trump Card, being the glompiest thing ever. ? MJ From agrajag at dragaera.net Thu Jan 15 06:49:00 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 09:49:00 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <200401142043.i0EKhELQ043462@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: <1074178140.9088.3.camel@pel> On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 17:56, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > Frankly, I think his greatest coup > was not killing the emperor, but rather scoring with the heiress! Now > THAT was an act of exceptional talent. I was always under the impression that she was so nice to him because he did kill the Emperor. Her little reward so to speak, as she obviously hated the man. But wait! I have an idea. I seem to recall in FHYA that Mario disappeared into Aliera's room, and no one knows where he went after that. Perhaps all he did was take off his disguise and put on a dress and regain his/her role as Heiress. From agrajag at dragaera.net Thu Jan 15 06:50:25 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 09:50:25 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040115133111.GB5130@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <1074120651.8673.0.camel@pel> <20040115133111.GB5130@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <1074178225.9088.5.camel@pel> On Thu, 2004-01-15 at 08:31, Steve Simmons wrote: > On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 05:50:51PM -0500, Jag wrote: > > > On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 17:37, Philip Hart wrote: > > > > This might also explain Morrollan's conspicuous lack of a paramour in > > > Vlad's time... > > > I seem to recall Morrollan having someone in Vlad's time. Her name's > > Verra :) > > So you're saying Aliera might have a half-brother or -sister some day? I would not dare to presume to have knowledge of the Demon Goddess's desire or lack there of for another child. From casey at the-bat.net Thu Jan 15 06:54:36 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 09:54:36 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040115133254.GC5130@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: Steve Simmons wrote: > Since 'secret' means that nobody knows except the people > involved, if Brust knows and told only one other person, it's > not secret. Everybody is missing the much more obvious qualifier. OK, maybe it's a trifle subtle, but look again at what Steven did _not_ say. Remember that Steven did write code once upon a time. I find it hard to believe that he would leave out one of the four two digit binary combinations by accident. 11 is there, as are 10 and 01. 00 is not. Ironic that, no? Casey And yes, I'm not saying anything explicitly on purpose. From agrajag at dragaera.net Thu Jan 15 07:07:55 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 10:07:55 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1074179274.9088.13.camel@pel> On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 18:17, Casey Rousseau wrote: > Philip Hart wrote: > > Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. > > Noone else has pointed this out but in the most careful elaboration Steve > has made on this comment, there were qualifiers. See below. (This was a > response to Matthew Hunter commenting on Zerika being in "disguise.") > > On Wednesday, December 04, 2002 9:02 AM Steven Brust > wrote: > > Er, what are you talking about? No character in the Vlad > > novels is secretly another character in the Vlad novels, at > > least that I know of. No character in the Vlad novels is > > secretly a character in any of my other novels, at least that > > I know of. No character in any of my other novels is > > secretly a character in any of the Vlad novels, at least that > > I know of. > > > > I think that covers it. > Good point. We've already seen a case where someone in one of the Paarfi Romances was secretly a character from the Vlad novels as well as that and later Paarfi Romances, namely Zerika. Who says there can't be more? From Randi128 at aol.com Thu Jan 15 07:29:11 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 10:29:11 EST Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20Greetings.=20=A0Regarding=20the=20Politics=20?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?of=20Brust=20and=20his=20=20Works?= Message-ID: In a message dated 01/15/2004 4:10:57 AM Eastern Standard Time, skzb at dreamcafe.com writes: > > "Steven Brust" writes: > > > > > I'll have to write something blatantly pedantic one of > > > these days. > > > > Like a rant about historical consistency in fantasy? > > > > That got canceled. In the effort of trying to organize my thoughts on the > subject, and speaking with Niel about it, I realized that I was full of > shit. So I didn't write it. I don't see why that should stop you. We would all probably buy it anyway. Steven Brust's gotta eat to you know!!!!!!!!!!!(and play poker. By the way, why weren't you on Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo? Your a celebrity (to sci-fi and fantasy readers at least) and you play a mean game of poker, or so I hear). John D. Barbato, OD From casey at the-bat.net Thu Jan 15 09:20:42 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 12:20:42 -0500 Subject: Noone else is anyone else In-Reply-To: <1074179274.9088.13.camel@pel> Message-ID: Jag wrote: > Good point. We've already seen a case where someone in one > of the Paarfi Romances was secretly a character from the Vlad > novels as well as that and later Paarfi Romances, namely > Zerika. Who says there can't be more? Are you deliberately obfuscating the issue? Steve said that that isn't what he meant. Zivra and Zerika are two names for the same person, no disguise, no secrecy. She is simply using an assumed name, as do Athos, Aramis and Porthos (oops I mean Aerich, Pel and Tazendra). This is very different from two distinct characters being presented by our author secretly (from the reader) being one and the same person. Sheesh. I guess subtlety doesn't work around here. Casey From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Thu Jan 15 13:06:03 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 13:06:03 -0800 Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Greetings._=A0Regardi?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?ng_the_Politics_of_?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Brust_and_his__Work?= =?ISO-8859-1?Q?s?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 10:29:11 EST, you wrote: >In a message dated 01/15/2004 4:10:57 AM Eastern Standard Time, >skzb at dreamcafe.com writes: > > >> > "Steven Brust" writes: >> > >> > > I'll have to write something blatantly pedantic one of >> > > these days. >> > >> > Like a rant about historical consistency in fantasy? >> > >> >> That got canceled. In the effort of trying to organize my thoughts on the >> subject, and speaking with Niel about it, I realized that I was full of >> shit. So I didn't write it. > > >I don't see why that should stop you. We would all probably buy it anyway. >Steven Brust's gotta eat to you know!!!!!!!!!!!(and play poker. By the way, why >weren't you on Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo? Your a celebrity (to sci-fi >and fantasy readers at least) and you play a mean game of poker, or so I hear). > Too mean. Did you see these "poker players". Gods, I had to keep wiping drool from my chin. That much money, that little ability. If Steve played them, he'd make so much money he wouldn't need to write anymore, and I'd be sad. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Thu Jan 15 14:05:52 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 14:05:52 -0800 Subject: Steve's Web Log In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040115220552.GA8392@ofb.net> On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 07:00:53AM -0800, lazarus wrote: > On the other hand, I feel for the small ranchers that are going to get > hurt by the hysteria over this. Although if they advertise "our cows only ate grass" they might profit. I try to get my beef from the farmer's market here, where there are two stands which sell allegedly grass-only beef. -xx- Damien X-) From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Thu Jan 15 14:29:27 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 14:29:27 -0800 Subject: Greetings. ?Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works In-Reply-To: <5502ED90.11AC6371.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <5502ED90.11AC6371.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <20040115222927.GB8392@ofb.net> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 02:02:17PM -0500, Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of > > these days. > > Like a rant about historical consistency in fantasy? For or against? -xx- Damien X-) From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Thu Jan 15 14:34:56 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 14:34:56 -0800 Subject: Fw: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <200401142316.AA1409679650@amish2000.com> References: <200401142316.AA1409679650@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <20040115223456.GC8392@ofb.net> On Wed, Jan 14, 2004 at 11:16:01PM -0800, M J wrote: > AND a Kennedy wife! Who, I hear, picks out his shoes. And I hear Robert Kennedy Jr., major environmental advocate, picked his head of the CA EPA, who's already spoken out against Bush since his appointment. -xx- Damien X-) From rone at ennui.org Thu Jan 15 14:54:19 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 14:54:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Greetings. Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040115225419.7F0B626C43@boredom.ennui.org> lazarus writes: On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 00:40:43 -0800, Steven Brust wrote: >I suppose nagypapa or nagyapa could turn in to noish-pa given enough time. Or enough fine Fenarian brandy? You can never have enough fine Fenarian brandy. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From rone at ennui.org Thu Jan 15 14:59:32 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 14:59:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: Greetings. ?Regarding the Politics of Brust and his Works In-Reply-To: <006a01c3db43$8633cf60$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: <20040115225932.21C0A26C55@boredom.ennui.org> Steven Brust writes: > > I'll have to write something blatently pedantic one of > > these days. > Like a rant about historical consistency in fantasy? That got cancelled. In the effort of trying to organize my thoughts on the subject, and speaking with Niel about it, I realized that I was full of shit. So I didn't write it. Possibly a distant offshoot will appear someday. Nothing wrong with "full of shit", so long as it's entertaining. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Jan 15 18:52:33 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 18:52:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Noone else is anyone else In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This subject seems exhausted, let us never speak of it again. Random other topic - on NPR recently they interviewed soldiers with post-traumatic-stress syndrome. One WWII vet whose story really hit me was in a bomber that got shot down. He watched a crewmember whose chute failed to open plummet to his death. Another crewman was killed by a shark. He still sees the faces. So anyway, I wonder if Dragons are susceptible to this. Perhaps Kragar... From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Thu Jan 15 19:10:49 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 22:10:49 -0500 Subject: Noone else is anyone else In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40075639.8070304@earthlink.net> Philip Hart wrote: >This subject seems exhausted, let us never speak of it again. > >Random other topic - on NPR recently they interviewed soldiers >with post-traumatic-stress syndrome. One WWII vet whose story >really hit me was in a bomber that got shot down. He watched >a crewmember whose chute failed to open plummet to his death. >Another crewman was killed by a shark. He still sees the faces. > >So anyway, I wonder if Dragons are susceptible to this. Perhaps >Kragar... > > I wonder if post-traumatic-stress syndrome is related to Savn's "battle shock." Based on the diagnosis, it seems clear that Dragons have at least witnessed the syndrome, if not experienced it themselves... Jose -- Jose Marquez \ There are 10 types of people in jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ the world: those who understand http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ binary, and those who don't. From casca913 at gbronline.com Thu Jan 15 21:51:04 2004 From: casca913 at gbronline.com (Charlie Smith) Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 23:51:04 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle References: Message-ID: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Silberstein" To: "Dragarean Email Group" Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 6:49 PM Subject: Re: Humans and the Cycle > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Charlie Smith wrote: > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Philip Hart" > > > > > >> Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. > > > >It becomes hard to trust such statements after Orca... Of > >course it is obvious when you go through and reread all the > >Vladiad... > > > > The reason it says "else" is specifically because the statement was > made *after* /Orca/, and was meant to exclude the revelation in that > one particular book. Ah aha, I didn't realize this. I beg leave to remind that not all of us have been on this list since the dawn of time and this makes it hard to know when Steve actually says the things which are quoted here. From matthew at infodancer.org Fri Jan 16 03:31:07 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 05:31:07 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> Message-ID: <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> On Thu, Jan 15, 2004 at 11:51:04PM -0600, Charlie Smith wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "David Silberstein" > To: "Dragarean Email Group" > Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 6:49 PM > Subject: Re: Humans and the Cycle > > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Charlie Smith wrote: > > >----- Original Message ----- > > >From: "Philip Hart" > > >> Note that SKZB has said that no one else is anyone else. > > >It becomes hard to trust such statements after Orca... Of > > >course it is obvious when you go through and reread all the > > >Vladiad... > > The reason it says "else" is specifically because the statement was > > made *after* /Orca/, and was meant to exclude the revelation in that > > one particular book. > Ah aha, I didn't realize this. I beg leave to remind that not all of us > have been on this list since the dawn of time and this makes it hard to know > when Steve actually says the things which are quoted here. And here I've been thinking of this list as a rather pleasant but youthful Johnny-come-lately to the world of SF on the internet. When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? The September that Never Ended? I think that's about right. Up until then the Internet was quiet but purposeful, like night before dawn... since then the cacophony has never ceased! -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From ijamie at sympatico.ca Fri Jan 16 04:12:48 2004 From: ijamie at sympatico.ca (Ian Jamieson) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 07:12:48 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <1074179274.9088.13.camel@pel> Message-ID: <20040116121255.ZDXE26187.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> >Good point. We've already seen a case where someone in one of the >Paarfi Romances was secretly a character from the Vlad novels as well as >that and later Paarfi Romances, namely Zerika. Who says there can't be >more? Zerika was not pretending to be someone else as I remember. She was just trying to be inconspicuous. From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Fri Jan 16 05:03:33 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:03:33 -0500 Subject: Battle Shock In-Reply-To: <40075639.8070304@earthlink.net> References: <40075639.8070304@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <63ED5D32-4824-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Jan 15, 2004, at 10:10 PM, Jose Marquez wrote: > Philip Hart wrote: > I wonder if post-traumatic-stress syndrome is related to Savn's > "battle shock." Based on the diagnosis, it seems clear that Dragons > have at least witnessed the syndrome, if not experienced it > themselves... The short answer must be yes. The long answer is from the great George Carlin: There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to it's absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. ... Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. ... Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha. Please forgive if this is overlong. Noam PS. I think George Carlin is Mario. Grim Neon Zebra (Noam R. Izenberg) From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Fri Jan 16 05:20:33 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:20:33 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040116121255.ZDXE26187.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> References: <1074179274.9088.13.camel@pel> <20040116121255.ZDXE26187.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> Message-ID: <20040116132033.GA9045@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 07:12:48AM -0500, Ian Jamieson wrote: > Zerika was not pretending to be someone else as I remember. She was just > trying to be inconspicuous. Minor correction -- Zerika didn't even know. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Fri Jan 16 05:26:58 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:26:58 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040116132033.GA9045@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <1074179274.9088.13.camel@pel> <20040116121255.ZDXE26187.tomts22-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> <20040116132033.GA9045@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Jan 16, 2004, at 8:20 AM, Steve Simmons wrote: > On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 07:12:48AM -0500, Ian Jamieson wrote: > >> Zerika was not pretending to be someone else as I remember. She was >> just >> trying to be inconspicuous. > > Minor correction -- Zerika didn't even know. I'm still only 1/3 through PoTD, and haven't met Zerika as Zerika yet, but that revelation is pretty well telegraphed in Zivra's family picture and Khaavren's memories. I don't even consider it a potential spoiler. Grim Bean Zone (Noam Izenberg - beware chili night) From agrajag at dragaera.net Fri Jan 16 06:57:06 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 09:57:06 -0500 Subject: Internet time In-Reply-To: <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <1074265026.4469.9.camel@pel> On Fri, 2004-01-16 at 06:31, Matthew Hunter wrote: > When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? 00:00:00 Jan 1 1970 GMT And email was created a mere 2-3 years later. (According to this.. http://www.coruscant.demon.co.uk/mike/sendmail/history.html) From matthew at infodancer.org Fri Jan 16 07:05:55 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 09:05:55 -0600 Subject: Internet time In-Reply-To: <1074265026.4469.9.camel@pel> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <1074265026.4469.9.camel@pel> Message-ID: <20040116150555.GH13020@infodancer.org> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 09:57:06AM -0500, Jag wrote: > On Fri, 2004-01-16 at 06:31, Matthew Hunter wrote: > > When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? > 00:00:00 Jan 1 1970 GMT > And email was created a mere 2-3 years later. (According to this.. > http://www.coruscant.demon.co.uk/mike/sendmail/history.html) That would be the dawn of UNIX time. Not quite the same thing. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From warlord at dragon.com Fri Jan 16 08:25:09 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 11:25:09 -0500 Subject: Internet time In-Reply-To: <20040116150555.GH13020@infodancer.org> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Matthew Hunter [mailto:matthew at infodancer.org] > Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 10:06 AM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Internet time > > > On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 09:57:06AM -0500, Jag > wrote: > > On Fri, 2004-01-16 at 06:31, Matthew Hunter wrote: > > > When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? > > 00:00:00 Jan 1 1970 GMT > > And email was created a mere 2-3 years later. (According to this.. > > http://www.coruscant.demon.co.uk/mike/sendmail/history.html) > > That would be the dawn of UNIX time. Not quite the same thing. > UNIX always has been a little off. On the first day of Christmas my server said to me: It's January 1970. "The C Days of Christmas" -- Sync; Sync; Halt Warlord From umbraenoctis at hotmail.com Fri Jan 16 10:02:02 2004 From: umbraenoctis at hotmail.com (James Griffin) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 10:02:02 -0800 Subject: Noone else is anyone else Message-ID: >From: Philip Hart >To: dragaera at dragaera.info >Subject: Re: Noone else is anyone else >Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 18:52:33 -0800 (PST) > >This subject seems exhausted, let us never speak of it again. He's trying to distract us! HE must be Mario! James Griffin, Still Another Vlad faN > >Random other topic - on NPR recently they interviewed soldiers >with post-traumatic-stress syndrome. One WWII vet whose story >really hit me was in a bomber that got shot down. He watched >a crewmember whose chute failed to open plummet to his death. >Another crewman was killed by a shark. He still sees the faces. > >So anyway, I wonder if Dragons are susceptible to this. Perhaps >Kragar... _________________________________________________________________ There are now three new levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage! Learn more. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=hotmail/es2&ST=1 From feetalsjeez at yahoo.com Fri Jan 16 12:26:11 2004 From: feetalsjeez at yahoo.com (Tim Owen) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 12:26:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <265FE5DA-46D0-11D8-AB16-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <20040116202611.37493.qmail@web40201.mail.yahoo.com> >>I always had it in my head he was Eastern. Maybe the name fooled me or overrode more explicit references.>> I belive in Yendi Vlad has a conversation with Kragar that goes something like: "Ishtvan? Easterner?" "No. Just an Eastern name like Mario" Tim Owen "Born in lust, turn to dust. Born in sin, come on in!" ~Andre Linoge Storm of the Century Noam Izenberg wrote: On Jan 14, 2004, at 3:05 PM, David Silberstein wrote: > Er. Human in which sense? You perceive, it is confusing to use that > particular term, since both Dragaerans and Easterners call themselves > "human". So I'm an Easterner snob. Human = Easterner. I was born in Boston, so it is perfectly logical to me. A always knew the Californians were Something Else... > We have Paarfi of Roundwood's history, which firmly describes Mario as > being a Jhereg, which is to say, a Dragaeran Jhereg. We know that > Mario is defintely a Dragaeran, because he is little more than 100 > years old (FHYA, chapter 19) and is still considered very young. Sigh. Time to re-read everything (have to finish POTD first, though). I always had it in my head he was Eastern. Maybe the name fooled me or overrode more explicit references. I guess I read FHYA too long ago. There goes my premise, anyway. Bizarre Non-Gem (Noam Izenberg - not too bright, but at least strange) --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes From casca913 at gbronline.com Fri Jan 16 14:01:09 2004 From: casca913 at gbronline.com (Charlie Smith) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:01:09 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> > When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? The September > that Never Ended? I think that's about right. Up until then the > Internet was quiet but purposeful, like night before dawn... > since then the cacophony has never ceased! I dunno, lets go over and ask Al Gore, he invented it didn't he................. nah, lets not. He's got SOOO many things to do right now, he won't have time for us.... From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 16 14:06:07 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 14:06:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Charlie Smith wrote: > > When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? The September > > that Never Ended? I think that's about right. Up until then the > > Internet was quiet but purposeful, like night before dawn... > > since then the cacophony has never ceased! > > I dunno, lets go over and ask Al Gore, he invented it didn't > he................. nah, lets not. He's got SOOO many things to do right > now, he won't have time for us.... Please refrain, this is a) an ignorant fabricated smear, and b) liable to result in an ugly political discussion on a polite list. From dd-b at dd-b.net Fri Jan 16 14:15:32 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:15:32 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> (Charlie Smith's message of "Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:01:09 -0600") References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: "Charlie Smith" writes: >> When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? The September >> that Never Ended? I think that's about right. Up until then the >> Internet was quiet but purposeful, like night before dawn... >> since then the cacophony has never ceased! > I dunno, lets go over and ask Al Gore, he invented it didn't > he................. nah, lets not. He's got SOOO many things to do right > now, he won't have time for us.... Well, at least he's pretty tired of being pestered with that particularly partisan lie, and probably wouldn't react that well to yet another person perpetuating it. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From matthew at infodancer.org Fri Jan 16 14:57:35 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:57:35 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 02:06:07PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Charlie Smith wrote: > > > When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? The September > > > that Never Ended? I think that's about right. Up until then the > > > Internet was quiet but purposeful, like night before dawn... > > > since then the cacophony has never ceased! > > I dunno, lets go over and ask Al Gore, he invented it didn't > > he................. nah, lets not. He's got SOOO many things to do right > > now, he won't have time for us.... > Please refrain, this is a) an ignorant fabricated smear, and b) liable to > result in an ugly political discussion on a polite list. Reason a isn't terribly accurate; you've just done the same thing you are complaining about. The "internet thing" was overhyped by conservatives trying to discredit Gore, and is overhyped by liberals trying to defend Gore. Saying Gore "invented the internet" is a misquote, but what Gore actually said, in context, was a fairly clear (and typical of just about any politician) attempt to take credit for the creation of the internet. Whether he deserved that credit is an argument for another day. Reason b is perfectly valid, on the other hand, so let's let it stop here, without further partisanship from either side. I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely someone else here remembers that? -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 16 15:05:40 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:05:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Matthew Hunter wrote: > On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 02:06:07PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > > On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Charlie Smith wrote: > > > > When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? The September > > > > that Never Ended? I think that's about right. Up until then the > > > > Internet was quiet but purposeful, like night before dawn... > > > > since then the cacophony has never ceased! > > > I dunno, lets go over and ask Al Gore, he invented it didn't > > > he................. nah, lets not. He's got SOOO many things to do right > > > now, he won't have time for us.... > > Please refrain, this is a) an ignorant fabricated smear, and b) liable to > > result in an ugly political discussion on a polite list. > > Reason a isn't terribly accurate; you've just done the same thing > you are complaining about. The "internet thing" was overhyped by > conservatives trying to discredit Gore, and is overhyped by > liberals trying to defend Gore. Saying Gore "invented the > internet" is a misquote, but what Gore actually said, in context, > was a fairly clear (and typical of just about any politician) > attempt to take credit for the creation of the internet. > > Whether he deserved that credit is an argument for another day. You're quite simply wrong, but I won't bother to educate you on this point in the spirit of point b). From rone at ennui.org Fri Jan 16 15:06:02 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:06:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <20040116230602.B300226C5E@boredom.ennui.org> Matthew Hunter writes: I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely someone else here remembers that? I'm trying really hard to forget it. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Fri Jan 16 15:19:34 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:19:34 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <40087186.3020805@earthlink.net> Matthew Hunter wrote: >On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 02:06:07PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > > >>On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Charlie Smith wrote: >> >> >>>>When exactly is the dawn of Internet time, again? The September >>>>that Never Ended? I think that's about right. Up until then the >>>>Internet was quiet but purposeful, like night before dawn... >>>>since then the cacophony has never ceased! >>>> >>>> >>>I dunno, lets go over and ask Al Gore, he invented it didn't >>>he................. nah, lets not. He's got SOOO many things to do right >>>now, he won't have time for us.... >>> >>> >>Please refrain, this is a) an ignorant fabricated smear, and b) liable to >>result in an ugly political discussion on a polite list. >> >> > >Reason a isn't terribly accurate; you've just done the same thing >you are complaining about. The "internet thing" was overhyped by >conservatives trying to discredit Gore, and is overhyped by >liberals trying to defend Gore. Saying Gore "invented the >internet" is a misquote, but what Gore actually said, in context, >was a fairly clear (and typical of just about any politician) >attempt to take credit for the creation of the internet. > >Whether he deserved that credit is an argument for another day. > >Reason b is perfectly valid, on the other hand, so let's let it >stop here, without further partisanship from either side. > >I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the >September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely >someone else here remembers that? > > > I don't know what the September That Never Ended refers to. Jose -- Jose Marquez \ There are 10 types of people in jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ the world: those who understand http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ binary, and those who don't. From matthew at infodancer.org Fri Jan 16 15:21:23 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:21:23 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <40087186.3020805@earthlink.net> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> <40087186.3020805@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20040116232123.GF13489@infodancer.org> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 06:19:34PM -0500, Jose Marquez wrote: > Matthew Hunter wrote: > >I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the > >September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely > >someone else here remembers that? > I don't know what the September That Never Ended refers to. I believe that makes you a part of it. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Fri Jan 16 15:22:36 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:22:36 -0800 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <20040116232236.GA28716@ofb.net> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 04:57:35PM -0600, Matthew Hunter wrote: > Reason a isn't terribly accurate; you've just done the same thing > you are complaining about. The "internet thing" was overhyped by > conservatives trying to discredit Gore, and is overhyped by > liberals trying to defend Gore. Saying Gore "invented the > internet" is a misquote, but what Gore actually said, in context, > was a fairly clear (and typical of just about any politician) > attempt to take credit for the creation of the internet. http://www.sethf.com/gore/ has part of his original statement, the original articles which jumped on Gore, and another later one by the same writer putting things in perspective. -xx- Damien X-) From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Fri Jan 16 15:37:19 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:37:19 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040116232123.GF13489@infodancer.org> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> <40087186.3020805@earthlink.net> <20040116232123.GF13489@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <400875AF.10704@earthlink.net> Matthew Hunter wrote: >On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 06:19:34PM -0500, Jose Marquez wrote: > > >>Matthew Hunter wrote: >> >> >>>I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the >>>September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely >>>someone else here remembers that? >>> >>> >>I don't know what the September That Never Ended refers to. >> >> > >I believe that makes you a part of it. > > > I believe you are mistaken. After some research I tried to avoid out of laziness, I find that although unfamiliar with the jargon, I'm quite familiar with the concept, having witnessed it again and again. I started using the internet in 1994 on a BBS run by a much older friend of mine. I was well schooled in netiquette (and the unix-like pro-line user shell) well before I started college in 1997, and I thus never went in for activities like those of the typical Septemberite. I will out of courtesy not elaborate on my AOL antipathy. Jose -- Jose Marquez \ There are 10 types of people in jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ the world: those who understand http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ binary, and those who don't. From matthew at infodancer.org Fri Jan 16 16:39:41 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:39:41 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <400875AF.10704@earthlink.net> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> <40087186.3020805@earthlink.net> <20040116232123.GF13489@infodancer.org> <400875AF.10704@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <20040117003941.GD30939@infodancer.org> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 06:37:19PM -0500, Jose Marquez wrote: > Matthew Hunter wrote: > >On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 06:19:34PM -0500, Jose Marquez > > wrote: > >>Matthew Hunter wrote: > >>>I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the > >>>September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely > >>>someone else here remembers that? > >>I don't know what the September That Never Ended refers to. > >I believe that makes you a part of it. > I believe you are mistaken. After some research I tried to avoid out of > laziness, I find that although unfamiliar with the jargon, I'm quite > familiar with the concept, having witnessed it again and again. I > started using the internet in 1994 on a BBS run by a much older friend > of mine. I was well schooled in netiquette (and the unix-like pro-line > user shell) well before I started college in 1997, and I thus never went > in for activities like those of the typical Septemberite. I will out of > courtesy not elaborate on my AOL antipathy. The September That Never Ended was in 1993. I rest my case. (Although I don't mean to imply anything negative as a result -- a number of perfectly nice people have appeared on the 'net since 1993...) -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From warbi at warbi.net Fri Jan 16 18:41:40 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:41:40 -0800 Subject: Fw: Humans and the Cycle Message-ID: <00a001c3dca3$70bb2a00$3dadfea9@warbi> > The September That Never Ended was in 1993. I rest my case. > > (Although I don't mean to imply anything negative as a result -- > a number of perfectly nice people have appeared on the 'net since > 1993...) Then you guys are both newbies! I had my first forays onto the old BBS's of the mid-80's where it took a week for reponses to post back and forth on a friends Apple IIe! lol Then I didn't have access to a home computer again until '96. warbi From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Fri Jan 16 16:56:44 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:56:44 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040117003941.GD30939@infodancer.org> References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> <40087186.3020805@earthlink.net> <20040116232123.GF13489@infodancer.org> <400875AF.10704@earthlink.net> <20040117003941.GD30939@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <4008884C.1040407@earthlink.net> Matthew Hunter wrote: >On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 06:37:19PM -0500, Jose Marquez wrote: > > >>Matthew Hunter wrote: >> >> >>>On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 06:19:34PM -0500, Jose Marquez >>> wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Matthew Hunter wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>>I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the >>>>>September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely >>>>>someone else here remembers that? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>I don't know what the September That Never Ended refers to. >>>> >>>> >>>I believe that makes you a part of it. >>> >>> >>I believe you are mistaken. After some research I tried to avoid out of >>laziness, I find that although unfamiliar with the jargon, I'm quite >>familiar with the concept, having witnessed it again and again. I >>started using the internet in 1994 on a BBS run by a much older friend >>of mine. I was well schooled in netiquette (and the unix-like pro-line >>user shell) well before I started college in 1997, and I thus never went >>in for activities like those of the typical Septemberite. I will out of >>courtesy not elaborate on my AOL antipathy. >> >> > >The September That Never Ended was in 1993. I rest my case. > >(Although I don't mean to imply anything negative as a result -- >a number of perfectly nice people have appeared on the 'net since >1993...) > > > I understood "part of it" to imply that I was part of the problem. My mistake. N.B. The September That Never Ended was in 1993, but it was also caused by AOLers entering Usenet. I'm quite proud to have never used AOL. Jose -- Jose Marquez \ There are 10 types of people in jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ the world: those who understand http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ binary, and those who don't. From davids at kithrup.com Fri Jan 16 16:56:18 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:56:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: >And everyone will have noted the strong (no, obsessional) pro-hybrid >theme of the Piroiad. It just occurred to me that Sethra, who >habitually falls into old modes of speech, is the original mixed >breed. .. > It's interesting to note that whenever the issue of mixed breeds comes up, there almost always seems to be a Dzur involved; and Dzur do seem to be the House whose members seem to most likely be involved in reckless and promiscuous cross-House shenanigans, and the ones least interested in propriety and self-restraint. Several examples: In TPG, Tazendra is the one always going off with Hawks or Issola or whatever. In FHYA, Grita is half-Dzur (and half-Tsalmoth). Also in FHYA, the Dzurlord Count Tree-by-the-Sea is boinking a Dragon (and is interested in her friend). In JHEREG, Mellar is a Jhereg-Dragon-Dzur mix. [spoilers for "Lord of Castle Black"] While Grassfog and Iatha's Houses are not disclosed, I think it not unlikely that Iatha is a Dzur, or is a crossbreed with a strong Dzur heritage. And finally, of course, Ibronka, the Dzur Heir, is so enamored of Piro that she chases after him. I think that's all. Did I leave any out? Anyway, Dzur does seem to be the House of high testosterone. From matthew at infodancer.org Fri Jan 16 16:57:40 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:57:40 -0600 Subject: Fw: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <00a001c3dca3$70bb2a00$3dadfea9@warbi> References: <00a001c3dca3$70bb2a00$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: <20040117005740.GF30939@infodancer.org> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 06:41:40PM -0800, warbi wrote: > > The September That Never Ended was in 1993. I rest my case. > > (Although I don't mean to imply anything negative as a result -- > > a number of perfectly nice people have appeared on the 'net since > > 1993...) > Then you guys are both newbies! I had my first forays onto the old BBS's > of the mid-80's where it took a week for reponses to post back and forth on > a friends Apple IIe! lol Then I didn't have access to a home computer again > until '96. warbi Methinks you assume too much. (This is getting woefully off-topic, and it's my fault. I accept all responsibility, and I'll shut up now.) -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From gomi at speakeasy.net Fri Jan 16 16:59:02 2004 From: gomi at speakeasy.net (Gomi no Sensei) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:59:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > It's interesting to note that whenever the issue of mixed breeds comes > up, there almost always seems to be a Dzur involved; and Dzur do seem > to be the House whose members seem to most likely be involved in > reckless and promiscuous cross-House shenanigans, and the ones least > interested in propriety and self-restraint. Several examples: Those Dzur. They'll screw anything that doesn't wandeer off in the first 30 seconds. Which in the case of Tazendra is a positive boon for the world-at-large. Yum. pe From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 16 17:19:29 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:19:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Except for "testosterone", given that it seems to be female Dzurs who stray the most, I nominate this for post-of-the-month. I would however like to reiterate my Yendis-sleep-around-a-lot theory, accounting for both their lack of House features and their low status. Re the spoiler below, I'm sticking with my they're-gay theory for now. Also re the spoiler, see _TLoCB_, top of page 234. On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > >And everyone will have noted the strong (no, obsessional) pro-hybrid > >theme of the Piroiad. It just occurred to me that Sethra, who > >habitually falls into old modes of speech, is the original mixed > >breed. .. > > > > It's interesting to note that whenever the issue of mixed breeds comes > up, there almost always seems to be a Dzur involved; and Dzur do seem > to be the House whose members seem to most likely be involved in > reckless and promiscuous cross-House shenanigans, and the ones least > interested in propriety and self-restraint. Several examples: > > In TPG, Tazendra is the one always going off with Hawks or Issola or > whatever. In FHYA, Grita is half-Dzur (and half-Tsalmoth). Also in > FHYA, the Dzurlord Count Tree-by-the-Sea is boinking a Dragon (and is > interested in her friend). In JHEREG, Mellar is a Jhereg-Dragon-Dzur > mix. > > [spoilers for "Lord of Castle Black"] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > While Grassfog and Iatha's Houses are not disclosed, I think it not > unlikely that Iatha is a Dzur, or is a crossbreed with a strong Dzur > heritage. And finally, of course, Ibronka, the Dzur Heir, is so > enamored of Piro that she chases after him. > > I think that's all. Did I leave any out? > > Anyway, Dzur does seem to be the House of high testosterone. > > > From davids at kithrup.com Fri Jan 16 17:34:55 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:34:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: >Except for "testosterone", given that it seems to be female Dzurs who >stray the most, Contrary to popular legend, testosterone modulates both sexuality and aggression (as well as having various other effects) in *both* sexes. Of course, Dragaerans may Do Things Differently, but, well, who can say? From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Fri Jan 16 17:31:36 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:31:36 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040117013136.GA16892@ofb.net> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 04:56:18PM -0800, David Silberstein wrote: > It's interesting to note that whenever the issue of mixed breeds comes > up, there almost always seems to be a Dzur involved; and Dzur do seem Maybe because other cross-breeds tend to wilt and die in the face of social disgust, whereas the Dzur just won't give up. -xx- Damien X-) From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 16 17:38:03 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:38:03 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As I recall, in Taltos, Vlad asks Morrolan who he knows that went down the Dzur path on the waterfalls, and Morrolan says Sethra. Vlad remarks that he always thought Sethra was a dragon. -Jeff On Jan 16, 2004, at 4:56 PM, David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > >> And everyone will have noted the strong (no, obsessional) pro-hybrid >> theme of the Piroiad. It just occurred to me that Sethra, who >> habitually falls into old modes of speech, is the original mixed >> breed. .. >> > > It's interesting to note that whenever the issue of mixed breeds comes > up, there almost always seems to be a Dzur involved; and Dzur do seem > to be the House whose members seem to most likely be involved in > reckless and promiscuous cross-House shenanigans, and the ones least > interested in propriety and self-restraint. Several examples: > > In TPG, Tazendra is the one always going off with Hawks or Issola or > whatever. In FHYA, Grita is half-Dzur (and half-Tsalmoth). Also in > FHYA, the Dzurlord Count Tree-by-the-Sea is boinking a Dragon (and is > interested in her friend). In JHEREG, Mellar is a Jhereg-Dragon-Dzur > mix. > > [spoilers for "Lord of Castle Black"] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > While Grassfog and Iatha's Houses are not disclosed, I think it not > unlikely that Iatha is a Dzur, or is a crossbreed with a strong Dzur > heritage. And finally, of course, Ibronka, the Dzur Heir, is so > enamored of Piro that she chases after him. > > I think that's all. Did I leave any out? > > Anyway, Dzur does seem to be the House of high testosterone. > From davids at kithrup.com Fri Jan 16 17:53:00 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 17:53:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: >As I recall, in Taltos, Vlad asks Morrolan who he knows that went >down the Dzur path on the waterfalls, and Morrolan says Sethra. Vlad >remarks that he always thought Sethra was a dragon. I think Sethra is an exception to nearly all rules of social propriety. Besides, we know it is possible to join House Dzur by defeating 17 Dzur Heros. Sethra may have been given a burial by Dzurs who wished to honor her by tacitly acknowledging that anyone who defeated as many Dzur as she did - we don't know the number, but almost certainly far greater than 17 - was an honorary Dzur. Paarfi has been careful to never state either Sethra's House, or the lack of knowledge of her House. Although I think he does say that Sethra the Younger is a Dragon. At this point, we don't know if Sethra is a Dragon, a Dzur, or a Dragon-Dzur mix, although it hasn't been ruled out either. If she *were* a mix, I think the polite avoidence of the topic would be common. To put it simply, Sethra is Sethra. From warbi at warbi.net Fri Jan 16 19:45:55 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:45:55 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <00be01c3dcac$756450a0$3dadfea9@warbi> > As I recall, in Taltos, Vlad asks Morrolan who he knows that went down > the Dzur path on the waterfalls, and Morrolan says Sethra. Vlad > remarks that he always thought Sethra was a dragon. > > -Jeff Doesn't Sethra predate the Houses or at least pretty close? warbi From mam at theworld.com Fri Jan 16 18:14:37 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:14:37 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <00be01c3dcac$756450a0$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, warbi wrote: #> As I recall, in Taltos, Vlad asks Morrolan who he knows that went down #> the Dzur path on the waterfalls, and Morrolan says Sethra. Vlad #> remarks that he always thought Sethra was a dragon. #> #> -Jeff # # Doesn't Sethra predate the Houses or at least pretty close? warbi Yes, she's older than the Empire. See _Jhereg_, the passage where Aliera is telling Vlad about reincarnation and what they were in their previous lives. That's right *at* the foundation of the Empire by their brother Kieron, and Sethra was part of it. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mia_mcdavid at comcast.net Fri Jan 16 20:50:15 2004 From: mia_mcdavid at comcast.net (Mia McDavid) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:50:15 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4008BF07.6080901@comcast.net> In fact, women also have testosterone, and it *does* have an influence on their sex drive . . . Philip Hart wrote: >Except for "testosterone", given that it seems to be female Dzurs who >stray the most, I nominate this for post-of-the-month. > >I would however like to reiterate my Yendis-sleep-around-a-lot theory, >accounting for both their lack of House features and their low status. > >Re the spoiler below, I'm sticking with my they're-gay theory for now. > >Also re the spoiler, see _TLoCB_, top of page 234. > > > >On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > > > >>On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: >> >> >> >>>And everyone will have noted the strong (no, obsessional) pro-hybrid >>>theme of the Piroiad. It just occurred to me that Sethra, who >>>habitually falls into old modes of speech, is the original mixed >>>breed. .. >>> >>> >>> >>It's interesting to note that whenever the issue of mixed breeds comes >>up, there almost always seems to be a Dzur involved; and Dzur do seem >>to be the House whose members seem to most likely be involved in >>reckless and promiscuous cross-House shenanigans, and the ones least >>interested in propriety and self-restraint. Several examples: >> >>In TPG, Tazendra is the one always going off with Hawks or Issola or >>whatever. In FHYA, Grita is half-Dzur (and half-Tsalmoth). Also in >>FHYA, the Dzurlord Count Tree-by-the-Sea is boinking a Dragon (and is >>interested in her friend). In JHEREG, Mellar is a Jhereg-Dragon-Dzur >>mix. >> >>[spoilers for "Lord of Castle Black"] >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>While Grassfog and Iatha's Houses are not disclosed, I think it not >>unlikely that Iatha is a Dzur, or is a crossbreed with a strong Dzur >>heritage. And finally, of course, Ibronka, the Dzur Heir, is so >>enamored of Piro that she chases after him. >> >>I think that's all. Did I leave any out? >> >>Anyway, Dzur does seem to be the House of high testosterone. >> >> >> >> >> > > > From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 16 21:49:11 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:49:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > > >As I recall, in Taltos, Vlad asks Morrolan who he knows that went > >down the Dzur path on the waterfalls, and Morrolan says Sethra. Vlad > >remarks that he always thought Sethra was a dragon. I think Vlad isn't the most reliable judge of apparent lineage. > I think Sethra is an exception to nearly all rules of social > propriety. > > Besides, we know it is possible to join House Dzur by defeating 17 > Dzur Heros. Sethra may have been given a burial by Dzurs who wished > to honor her by tacitly acknowledging that anyone who defeated as many > Dzur as she did - we don't know the number, but almost certainly far > greater than 17 - was an honorary Dzur. > > Paarfi has been careful to never state either Sethra's House, or the > lack of knowledge of her House. Although I think he does say that > Sethra the Younger is a Dragon. > I fail to understand any of your reasoning above in the context of Jeffrey's observation. Probably the lack of alcohol at my gf's. > At this point, we don't know if Sethra is a Dragon, a Dzur, or a > Dragon-Dzur mix, although it hasn't been ruled out either. If she > *were* a mix, I think the polite avoidence of the topic would be > common. It's also possible that she's not a mix in the sense that she has a Dragon ancestor and a Dzur ancestor - she might have come from a line based on both sets of genes, i.e. she's a DzurDragon not a Dzur-Dragon. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 16 21:55:25 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 21:55:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <4008BF07.6080901@comcast.net> References: <4008BF07.6080901@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Mia McDavid wrote: > In fact, women also have testosterone, and it *does* have an influence > on their sex drive . . . I vaguely know that abnormally low testosterone leads to low female libido - is it the case that abnormally high t leads to high female libido? I vaguely thought estrogen levels were a) coupled in some complicated way to t levels and b) more important in libido. I had wildly speculated that extending human fertility and life to the multi-k level would involve different regulatory methods than we use... From davids at kithrup.com Fri Jan 16 22:23:51 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:23:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > >I vaguely know that abnormally low testosterone leads to low female >libido - is it the case that abnormally high t leads to high female >libido? > A few seconds of research indicates that it does: http://www.cbc.ca/national/science/testosterone.html Although to be thoroughly accurate, I should state that I read an entire book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0071376283 >I vaguely thought estrogen levels were a) coupled in some complicated >way to t levels and b) more important in libido. Estrogen differs from testosterone by a very small degree; and generally speaking a) is true. (b) is not; it is generally recognized in the medical realm that testosterone is by far more important in libido. From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 16 22:34:58 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:34:58 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <456EBABB-48B7-11D8-9F66-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Just throwing this out there with really no evidence. We know from scattered references that at one point, there were 20 houses prior to the formation of the empire (or, as Aliera wryly remarks, 19 and one tribe of teckla). Since Sethra's House seems so difficult to place, perhaps she is a member of one of these "lost" or destroyed Houses? -Jeff From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Jan 16 22:41:02 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:41:02 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <456EBABB-48B7-11D8-9F66-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <456EBABB-48B7-11D8-9F66-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:34:58 -0800, you wrote: >Just throwing this out there with really no evidence. We know from >scattered references that at one point, there were 20 houses prior to >the formation of the empire (or, as Aliera wryly remarks, 19 and one >tribe of teckla). Since Sethra's House seems so difficult to place, >perhaps she is a member of one of these "lost" or destroyed Houses? > >-Jeff Alternatively, I've always liked the idea that she's got parts of all the Houses in her. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From skzb at dreamcafe.com Fri Jan 16 22:53:00 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:53:00 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex References: Message-ID: <009501c3dcc6$8c0d19d0$fe00000a@steve> > On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > >And everyone will have noted the strong (no, obsessional) pro-hybrid > >theme of the Piroiad. It just occurred to me that Sethra, who > >habitually falls into old modes of speech, is the original mixed > >breed. .. > > > > It's interesting to note that whenever the issue of mixed breeds comes > up, there almost always seems to be a Dzur involved; and Dzur do seem > to be the House whose members seem to most likely be involved in > reckless and promiscuous cross-House shenanigans, and the ones least > interested in propriety and self-restraint. Several examples: > You know, I had never noticed that. Interesting. Very interesting. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 16 23:17:58 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 23:17:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <456EBABB-48B7-11D8-9F66-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:34:58 -0800, you wrote: > > >Just throwing this out there with really no evidence. We know from > >scattered references that at one point, there were 20 houses prior to > >the formation of the empire (or, as Aliera wryly remarks, 19 and one > >tribe of teckla). Since Sethra's House seems so difficult to place, > >perhaps she is a member of one of these "lost" or destroyed Houses? > > > >-Jeff > > Alternatively, I've always liked the idea that she's got parts of all > the Houses in her. Well, if blood counts as "parts". She has to live off _something_... From hans117 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 16 23:26:26 2004 From: hans117 at yahoo.com (Hans Schweitzer) Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 23:26:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <456EBABB-48B7-11D8-9F66-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040117072626.63444.qmail@web13801.mail.yahoo.com> I really do not think it is safe to assume that Sethra was born at all. There is numerous proof through the series that I am sure you are all aware of. The main thing is I just cannot imagine Sethra having parents and a childhood. Unless... Here is my crazy theory for the day. Sethra is Devera when she grows up. It makes complete since when you think about it. There is evidence to back this up, but I am too tired and lazy at the moment to go into any depth. References: <456EBABB-48B7-11D8-9F66-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 23:17:58 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > >On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > >> On Fri, 16 Jan 2004 22:34:58 -0800, you wrote: >> >> >Just throwing this out there with really no evidence. We know from >> >scattered references that at one point, there were 20 houses prior to >> >the formation of the empire (or, as Aliera wryly remarks, 19 and one >> >tribe of teckla). Since Sethra's House seems so difficult to place, >> >perhaps she is a member of one of these "lost" or destroyed Houses? >> > >> >-Jeff >> >> Alternatively, I've always liked the idea that she's got parts of all >> the Houses in her. > >Well, if blood counts as "parts". She has to live off _something_... And another way of looking at it. :-) -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From ijamie at sympatico.ca Sat Jan 17 03:50:28 2004 From: ijamie at sympatico.ca (Ian Jamieson) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 06:50:28 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040117072626.63444.qmail@web13801.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040117115036.JATJ23158.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> >Here is my crazy theory for the day. Sethra is Devera when she grows up. >It makes complete since when you think about it. There is evidence to back >this up, but I am too tired and lazy at the moment to go into any depth. Now there's a theory I really like. It provides a reason for Sethra's fondness for Vlad. It provides some explanation for the fact she doesn't fit in a house, she has human genes. Now if we can just come up with a reason for her to go back several odd thousand years to live her 'unlife'. Maybe she has to help her father's previous incarnation screw up the formation of the empire. From pulmon at comcast.net Sat Jan 17 05:17:15 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 08:17:15 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <77D2A25C-48EF-11D8-9F42-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Estrogen and testosterone are chemically related and are interconverted by enzymes in the body. This link will take you to a diagram: http://www.nsac.ns.ca/envsci/jhoyle/students/jhealy/ Biosynthesis%20of%20Steroids.htm Ken On Jan 17, 2004, at 1:23 AM, David Silberstein wrote: > On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > >> >> I vaguely know that abnormally low testosterone leads to low female >> libido - is it the case that abnormally high t leads to high female >> libido? >> > > A few seconds of research indicates that it does: > > http://www.cbc.ca/national/science/testosterone.html > > Although to be thoroughly accurate, I should state that > I read an entire book on the subject: > > http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0071376283 > >> I vaguely thought estrogen levels were a) coupled in some complicated >> way to t levels and b) more important in libido. > > Estrogen differs from testosterone by a very small degree; and > generally speaking a) is true. (b) is not; it is generally recognized > in the medical realm that testosterone is by far more important in > libido. > From pulmon at comcast.net Sat Jan 17 05:19:00 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 08:19:00 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040117072626.63444.qmail@web13801.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040117072626.63444.qmail@web13801.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Of course, if Sethra was not born, she must have been hatched. in order to get hatched she must have been laid. And who the heck would do that? On Jan 17, 2004, at 2:26 AM, Hans Schweitzer wrote: > I really do not think it is safe to assume that Sethra was born at > all. There is numerous proof through the series that I am sure you > are all aware of. The main thing is I just cannot imagine Sethra > having parents and a childhood. Unless... Here is my crazy theory > for the day. Sethra is Devera when she grows up. It makes complete > since when you think about it. There is evidence to back this up, but > I am too tired and lazy at the moment to go into any depth. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes From matthew at infodancer.org Sat Jan 17 05:26:32 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 07:26:32 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <20040117072626.63444.qmail@web13801.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040117132632.GK30939@infodancer.org> On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 08:19:00AM -0500, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > Of course, if Sethra was not born, she must have been hatched. in order > to get hatched she must have been laid. And who the heck would do that? Are you kidding? Sethra may be cold-blooded, but that doesn't make her a cold fish. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From TimN at rcn.com Sat Jan 17 06:44:25 2004 From: TimN at rcn.com (Timothy Nelson) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:44:25 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex References: <20040117072626.63444.qmail@web13801.mail.yahoo.com> <20040117132632.GK30939@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <001501c3dd08$67d38c60$d916fea9@ananda> Sethra is the sexiest female character in the Vladiad, hands down. ----- Original Message ----- From: Matthew Hunter To: Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 8:26 AM Subject: Re: Dzur and Sex > On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 08:19:00AM -0500, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > > Of course, if Sethra was not born, she must have been hatched. in order > > to get hatched she must have been laid. And who the heck would do that? > > Are you kidding? Sethra may be cold-blooded, but that doesn't > make her a cold fish. > > -- > Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) > Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt > Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp > Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From mam at theworld.com Sat Jan 17 08:55:54 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 11:55:54 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: (I accidentally sent this only to Trager instead of to the list.) On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Trager wrote: #Older than the empire doesn't necessarily imply older than the houses #(or at least the tribes from which the houses were created)... Remember her seal: The Dragon and Dzur symbols coming in, and nothing going out. Remember what she said about "going back to being part of the rock of Dzur Mountain." I don't think she's got any kind of normal Dragaeran genealogy. Just my personal opinion. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Sat Jan 17 08:57:43 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 11:57:43 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <456EBABB-48B7-11D8-9F66-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: #Just throwing this out there with really no evidence. We know from #scattered references that at one point, there were 20 houses prior to #the formation of the empire (or, as Aliera wryly remarks, 19 and one #tribe of teckla). Since Sethra's House seems so difficult to place, #perhaps she is a member of one of these "lost" or destroyed Houses? For that matter, iirc, we learn somewhere that there were originally something like 38 Houses, or proto-Houses, but most did not survive to the formation of the Empire. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From scs at di.org Sat Jan 17 09:01:25 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:01:25 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <00be01c3dcac$756450a0$3dadfea9@warbi> References: <00be01c3dcac$756450a0$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: <20040117170125.GE14572@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 07:45:55PM -0800, warbi wrote: > Doesn't Sethra predate the Houses or at least pretty close? warbi Sethra states that she was present at a time when the houses were still tribes and there were more than 17 of them. Sorry, don't have a textref but I think it was Issola. Given the hints she's dropped about the Jenoine and the evolution of Dragaerans, it's doubtful she preceeds tribes. Tho she might well date to the early days of them, all things considered. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From pulmon at comcast.net Sat Jan 17 09:09:27 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:09:27 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040117132632.GK30939@infodancer.org> References: <20040117072626.63444.qmail@web13801.mail.yahoo.com> <20040117132632.GK30939@infodancer.org> Message-ID: There is nothing written about Sethra that makes her in the least a sexual being. As "part of Dzur Mountain", her "undead voice", etc., she is powerful, fearsome, awe-inspiring, but sure as heck not sexy! On Jan 17, 2004, at 8:26 AM, Matthew Hunter wrote: > On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 08:19:00AM -0500, Kenneth Gorelick > wrote: >> Of course, if Sethra was not born, she must have been hatched. in >> order >> to get hatched she must have been laid. And who the heck would do >> that? > > Are you kidding? Sethra may be cold-blooded, but that doesn't > make her a cold fish. > > -- > Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) > Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt > Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp > Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp > From dd-b at dd-b.net Sat Jan 17 10:14:52 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:14:52 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> (Matthew Hunter's message of "Fri, 16 Jan 2004 16:57:35 -0600") References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> Message-ID: Matthew Hunter writes: > I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the > September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely > someone else here remembers that? What's to respond to? I mean, it's a simple fact of history! (Internet and Usenet user since 1981). -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Sat Jan 17 10:15:41 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:15:41 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: (Philip Hart's message of "Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:05:40 -0800 (PST)") References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> Message-ID: Philip Hart writes: > You're quite simply wrong, but I won't bother to educate you on this point > in the spirit of point b). Insisting on having the last word is not in the spirit of point b. (Note that I'm not so insisting myself just now.) -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Sat Jan 17 10:17:14 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:17:14 -0600 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: <400875AF.10704@earthlink.net> (Jose Marquez's message of "Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:37:19 -0500") References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> <40087186.3020805@earthlink.net> <20040116232123.GF13489@infodancer.org> <400875AF.10704@earthlink.net> Message-ID: Jose Marquez writes: > Matthew Hunter wrote: > >>On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 06:19:34PM -0500, Jose Marquez wrote: >> >>>Matthew Hunter wrote: >>> >>>> I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the >>>> September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely >>>> someone else here remembers that? >>>> >>>I don't know what the September That Never Ended refers to. >>> >> >> I believe that makes you a part of it. > I believe you are mistaken. After some research I tried to avoid out > of laziness, I find that although unfamiliar with the jargon, I'm > quite familiar with the concept, having witnessed it again and > again. I started using the internet in 1994 on a BBS run by a much > older friend of mine. I was well schooled in netiquette (and the > unix-like pro-line user shell) well before I started college in 1997, > and I thus never went in for activities like those of the typical > Septemberite. I will out of courtesy not elaborate on my AOL antipathy. As a claim about people's actions and attitudes, sounds like it doesn't refer to you. However, I know it mostly as a claim about the time when the public started getting on the Internet, which was -- September of 1994, actually. So in that sense it sounds like are a part of it. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Sat Jan 17 10:21:55 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:21:55 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <001501c3dd08$67d38c60$d916fea9@ananda> (Timothy Nelson's message of "Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:44:25 -0500") References: <20040117072626.63444.qmail@web13801.mail.yahoo.com> <20040117132632.GK30939@infodancer.org> <001501c3dd08$67d38c60$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: "Timothy Nelson" writes: > Sethra is the sexiest female character in the Vladiad, hands down. Fond of dangerous women, hmmmm? -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sat Jan 17 10:37:11 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 10:37:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> Message-ID: On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Philip Hart writes: > > > You're quite simply wrong, but I won't bother to educate you on this point > > in the spirit of point b). > > Insisting on having the last word is not in the spirit of point b. > (Note that I'm not so insisting myself just now.) You're certainly correct - on the other hand, it seemed to me that the above post was a distillation of the post it responded to. Note for the record that I've corresponded with that poster and learned that he (as far as I understand) objected to the second adjective in my original post in this thread, and that I acknowledge that it was imprecise, and that anyone wishing to know which adjective he and I agree would adequately express my opinion on the subject at hand while not contradicting his view of the events to which the thread referred - any such person is welcome to email me privately. I hearby invite any and all with an interest in further perpetuating this thread to chime in with the knowledge that I won't. From dusty at sayersnet.com Sat Jan 17 10:40:05 2004 From: dusty at sayersnet.com (J A 'Dusty' Sayers) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 13:40:05 -0500 Subject: Humans and the Cycle In-Reply-To: References: <004b01c3dbf4$c210cd10$38570945@pentium4> <20040116113107.GB30939@infodancer.org> <002f01c3dc7c$40783120$c9d1fdd8@pentium4> <20040116225735.GD13489@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <40098185.2050007@sayersnet.com> David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >Matthew Hunter writes: > > > >>I'm midly surprised that no one bothered to respond to the >>September That Never Ended part of my original message. Surely >>someone else here remembers that? >> >> > >What's to respond to? I mean, it's a simple fact of history! > >(Internet and Usenet user since 1981). > > Besides, responding just to say 'Me too! I remember!' would be just the sort of thing that the complaints about the September that Never Ends were all about in the first place. (Just being a smart-aleck; not meaning to actually be rude.) -- J A Dusty Sayers 'Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.' -- Proverbs 31:6-7 From warlord at dragon.com Sat Jan 17 11:57:26 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:57:26 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark A Mandel [mailto:mam at theworld.com] > Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 11:58 AM > To: Jeffrey Kiok > Cc: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Dzur and Sex > > > On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > > #Just throwing this out there with really no evidence. We know from > #scattered references that at one point, there were 20 houses prior to > #the formation of the empire (or, as Aliera wryly remarks, 19 and one > #tribe of teckla). Since Sethra's House seems so difficult to place, > #perhaps she is a member of one of these "lost" or destroyed Houses? > > For that matter, iirc, we learn somewhere that there were originally > something like 38 Houses, or proto-Houses, but most did not survive to > the formation of the Empire. > The number of houses has fluxuated over time, but the Empire was formed from 31 tribes. W >From the Star Trek episode written by Dr. Suess: Worf: Ask him why? How sentimental. I say give him problems dental. From rone at ennui.org Sat Jan 17 12:25:22 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:25:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <001501c3dd08$67d38c60$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: <20040117202522.6E92C26C61@boredom.ennui.org> Timothy Nelson writes: Sethra is the sexiest female character in the Vladiad, hands down. Actually, i find Kiera sexier. rone not (entirely) joking -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From matthew at infodancer.org Sat Jan 17 12:56:45 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:56:45 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <20040117072626.63444.qmail@web13801.mail.yahoo.com> <20040117132632.GK30939@infodancer.org> <001501c3dd08$67d38c60$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: <20040117205645.GB28572@infodancer.org> On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 12:21:55PM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > "Timothy Nelson" writes: > > Sethra is the sexiest female character in the Vladiad, hands down. > Fond of dangerous women, hmmmm? Those are the most interesting. And I figure, ever since those few paragraphs about Sethra I posted to this mailing list some time ago, she's probably *especially* dangerous for me... -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From warlord at dragon.com Sat Jan 17 12:59:27 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 15:59:27 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040117205645.GB28572@infodancer.org> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Matthew Hunter [mailto:matthew at infodancer.org] > Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 3:57 PM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Dzur and Sex > > > On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 12:21:55PM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet > wrote: > > "Timothy Nelson" writes: > > > Sethra is the sexiest female character in the Vladiad, hands down. > > Fond of dangerous women, hmmmm? > > Those are the most interesting. > > And I figure, ever since those few paragraphs about Sethra I > posted to this mailing list some time ago, she's probably > *especially* dangerous for me... > "Do not mess in the affairs of Sethra, for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup." W From agrajag at dragaera.net Sat Jan 17 14:18:02 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: 17 Jan 2004 17:18:02 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040117115036.JATJ23158.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> References: <20040117115036.JATJ23158.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> Message-ID: <1074377882.2022.10.camel@loiosh> On Sat, 2004-01-17 at 06:50, Ian Jamieson wrote: > >Here is my crazy theory for the day. Sethra is Devera when she grows up. > >It makes complete since when you think about it. There is evidence to back > >this up, but I am too tired and lazy at the moment to go into any depth. > > > Now there's a theory I really like. It provides a reason for Sethra's > fondness for Vlad. It provides some explanation for the fact she doesn't fit > in a house, she has human genes. Not sure I follow that. Which definition of 'human' do you mean? > Now if we can just come up with a reason > for her to go back several odd thousand years to live her 'unlife'. Don't forget that Sethra only died 'recently'. There are reports that not to many Cycles ago she was alive. From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 17 14:25:27 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:25:27 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <1074377882.2022.10.camel@loiosh> References: <20040117115036.JATJ23158.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> <1074377882.2022.10.camel@loiosh> Message-ID: <0D177E02-493C-11D8-88E3-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> As I recall, didn't she "die" after some affair or scandal called the Lavode Scandal, after which she was banished from the court? I think (my memory is hazy here) that it was something around the 13-14 cycle. -Jeff On Jan 17, 2004, at 2:18 PM, Jag wrote: > On Sat, 2004-01-17 at 06:50, Ian Jamieson wrote: >>> Here is my crazy theory for the day. Sethra is Devera when she >>> grows up. >>> It makes complete since when you think about it. There is evidence >>> to back >>> this up, but I am too tired and lazy at the moment to go into any >>> depth. >> >> >> Now there's a theory I really like. It provides a reason for Sethra's >> fondness for Vlad. It provides some explanation for the fact she >> doesn't fit >> in a house, she has human genes. > > Not sure I follow that. Which definition of 'human' do you mean? > >> Now if we can just come up with a reason >> for her to go back several odd thousand years to live her 'unlife'. > > Don't forget that Sethra only died 'recently'. There are reports that > not to many Cycles ago she was alive. > From dgf at dd-b.net Sat Jan 17 15:17:03 2004 From: dgf at dd-b.net (dgf at dd-b.net) Date: 17 Jan 2004 23:17:03 -0000 Subject: Dragaera subscriber list Message-ID: <20040117231703.19271.qmail@dd-b.net> acwest-dragaera (at) craigwest.net (email) "A. 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Nonymous" yukio_toko (at) yahoo.com (email) yukiotoko imp-thing zaphod (at) charter.net (email) "Greg Schwartz" zarkon (at) illrepute.org (email) John Klein From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Sat Jan 17 17:51:04 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 17:51:04 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <0D177E02-493C-11D8-88E3-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <20040117115036.JATJ23158.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> <1074377882.2022.10.camel@loiosh> <0D177E02-493C-11D8-88E3-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:25:27 -0800, you wrote: >As I recall, didn't she "die" after some affair or scandal called the >Lavode Scandal, after which she was banished from the court? I think >(my memory is hazy here) that it was something around the 13-14 cycle. IIRC, the Lavode Scandal was the discovery that she was, in fact, no longer alive. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From davids at kithrup.com Sat Jan 17 18:07:04 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 18:07:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: >On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:25:27 -0800, you wrote: > >>As I recall, didn't she "die" after some affair or scandal called the >>Lavode Scandal, after which she was banished from the court? I think >>(my memory is hazy here) that it was something around the 13-14 cycle. > >IIRC, the Lavode Scandal was the discovery that she was, in fact, no >longer alive. > The precise details of the Lavode Scandal have never been revealed. For whatever it's worth, though, I think the above is the most likely explanation. [Spoiler for /The Lord of Castle Black/] Now that Zerika has oh-so-casually mentioned to Morrolan that she intends to make Sethra Lavode the Warlord, I suspect that in April, we will find out exactly what the Lavode Scandal was all about. From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Sat Jan 17 18:37:08 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 18:37:08 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <363A6F1E-495F-11D8-A212-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> On Jan 17, 2004, at 6:07 PM, David Silberstein wrote: > On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > >> On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:25:27 -0800, you wrote: >> >>> As I recall, didn't she "die" after some affair or scandal called the >>> Lavode Scandal, after which she was banished from the court? I think >>> (my memory is hazy here) that it was something around the 13-14 >>> cycle. >> >> IIRC, the Lavode Scandal was the discovery that she was, in fact, no >> longer alive. >> > > The precise details of the Lavode Scandal have never been revealed. > For whatever it's worth, though, I think the above is the most likely > explanation. > > [Spoiler for /The Lord of Castle Black/] > > Thank you. I must've gotten my imperial scandals mixed up. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Now that Zerika has oh-so-casually mentioned to Morrolan that she > intends to make Sethra Lavode the Warlord, I suspect that in April, > we will find out exactly what the Lavode Scandal was all about. > From greyw01f at hotmail.com Sun Jan 18 12:28:16 2004 From: greyw01f at hotmail.com (Jon Carey) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 20:28:16 +0000 Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: gotta be Cawti or Verra. (I like assassins, go figure--and if you're after dangerous women, Verra would probably be a better choice. If it's the undead bit, Necromancer would be a better bet. Sethra's just second-rate.) Sethra's cool beyond belief, but I've never gotten a feeling of "this character is sexy", well not in any serious degree. Aliera is sexy because that's her character, which lowers her sexiness, in my opinion :) Mario is a very sexy female, for a Serioli. But above all of them, I would definitely say Hwdf-rjaanci is hottest. Yowzers! Jon ----Original Message Follows---- From: Matthew Hunter To: dragaera at dragaera.info Subject: Re: Dzur and Sex Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 14:56:45 -0600 On Sat, Jan 17, 2004 at 12:21:55PM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > "Timothy Nelson" writes: > > Sethra is the sexiest female character in the Vladiad, hands down. > Fond of dangerous women, hmmmm? Those are the most interesting. And I figure, ever since those few paragraphs about Sethra I posted to this mailing list some time ago, she's probably *especially* dangerous for me... -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca From Spamme13 at aol.com Sun Jan 18 15:53:22 2004 From: Spamme13 at aol.com (Spamme13 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 18:53:22 EST Subject: Dzur and sex Message-ID: More importantly...has Vlad ever used the line, "Got any Jhereg in you? Want some?" ---Adam S. From mklahn at mac.com Mon Jan 19 08:43:17 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 10:43:17 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Jan 18, 2004, at 14:28 , Jon Carey wrote: > gotta be Cawti Meh. Actually, after Teckla, my respect for Cawti plummeted. I understand her convictions, but I do agree with Vlad that it's not nice to throw other people's lives away to further your own philosophy, no matter how much good you think it's doing for everyone else. And, Teckla and Phoenix made me so mad at her that I can't really like her as a character anymore. :( Oh, well. And, in my mind, Sethra cannot be Devera (and vice-versa) because of the previously much-harped-upon "No secret identities" argument that continues to be ignored in these threads, despite many, many, many mails about them. Besides, Devera is Mario. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From warbi at warbi.net Mon Jan 19 10:51:56 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 10:51:56 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <0dd901c3debd$52181100$3dadfea9@warbi> > Meh. Actually, after Teckla, my respect for Cawti plummeted. I > understand her convictions, but I do agree with Vlad that it's not nice > to throw other people's lives away to further your own philosophy, no > matter how much good you think it's doing for everyone else. And, > Teckla and Phoenix made me so mad at her that I can't really like her > as a character anymore. :( > > Oh, well. > > And, in my mind, Sethra cannot be Devera (and vice-versa) because of > the previously much-harped-upon "No secret identities" argument that > continues to be ignored in these threads, despite many, many, many > mails about them. Besides, Devera is Mario. Matthew, I would have to agree with you on Catwi although Steve will probably kick us off the list now! lol As for Mario, he is actually a figment of everyone's imagination! warbi From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Mon Jan 19 09:09:20 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:09:20 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Jan 19, 2004, at 11:43 AM, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > On Jan 18, 2004, at 14:28 , Jon Carey wrote: > >> gotta be Cawti > > Meh. Actually, after Teckla, my respect for Cawti plummeted. I > understand her convictions, but I do agree with Vlad that it's not > nice to throw other people's lives away to further your own > philosophy, no matter how much good you think it's doing for everyone > else. And, Teckla and Phoenix made me so mad at her that I can't > really like her as a character anymore. :( I dunno. It could be argued that until he went on the lam, Vlad's entire purpose was to throw other people's lives away (and to personally do the throwing whenever possible to further his own (at the time, rather limited) philosophy. Granted his philosophy has developed and expanded over time, and not a small amount during the events of Teckla itself, but I think that Vlad couldn't really feel that way without acknowledging he'd be throwing stones in his own glass house However, I think, since my view of the saga is firmly planted inside Vlad's narrative, it isn't Cawti (though it's close in that bittersweet way), nor is it Sethra. Kiera's close (yeah, yeah). But tops on the list _at_the_moment_ is Lady Teldra. How could it be otherwise? After careful analysis, I am _almost_ ready retract my prediction that Teldra was Mario. Help! I'm an Orange Zebra! (Noam Raphael Izenberg) From mklahn at mac.com Mon Jan 19 09:42:00 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:42:00 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: On Jan 19, 2004, at 11:09 , Noam Izenberg wrote: > It could be argued that until he went on the lam, Vlad's entire > purpose was to throw other people's lives away (and to personally do > the throwing whenever possible to further his own (at the time, rather > limited) philosophy. Granted his philosophy has developed and > expanded over time, and not a small amount during the events of Teckla > itself, but I think that Vlad couldn't really feel that way without > acknowledging he'd be throwing stones in his own glass house Well, it could also be argued that those people were throwing their own lives away, and that Vlad was just the mechanism. How is assassination different from rabble-rousing? Well, in one case, you're enforcing someone else's will by choosing to off a person. In the other case, you're being convinced that in order to make an omelet, a few eggs need to be broken and that you, yourself, are an egg that may be called upon to break yourself against a very hot cast-iron pan that happens to have some oil, garlic and chives in it. That is all to say, just to make things pretty unobsfucated, Vlad was part of a system. Everyone else in the system knew that they were doing things that require walking a pretty tight line. If you stray from the extremely tight etiquette of the organization, you may get finalized unless you're tough enough to fight it. So, in other words, you're gonna reap what you sow if you piss someone off. If Vlad chose to be a part of that system, that's not a good moral choice in my world, but in his (that is, within the Jhereg), it was pretty normal. However, the revolutionist movement in Teckla & Phoenix was almost the opposite. The revolutionists decided that they didn't like the system they were in, and gee, look, there sure are a lot of other people who are in their same position. All they needed to do to get out of their situation was to convince everyone else that the system was no good, and that it was worth dying for. The problem that I have with all of this is that the revolutionists looked at all the Teckla and Easterners that they were using to overthrow the Empire as expendable, since those people were giving their own lives. So, really, why is the revolutionist any better than the Empress and her press-gangs? Both were forcing Teckla & Easterners to die, but the revolutionists thought that their situation was more "worthy" of the blood-sacrifice simply because they thought that all of the surviving Teckla & Easterners would be better off afterwards. Now, whether that is true or not is up to debate, BUT, to create conflict & violence to further your own ends at the expense of other people's lives WHILE NOT putting yourself in the same risk is synonymous with "evil" in my book. Bush Bush Sorry! Wow, that's a nasty cough I have there... -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Mon Jan 19 10:15:34 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:15:34 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Jan 19, 2004, at 12:42 PM, Matthew Klahn wrote: > On Jan 19, 2004, at 11:09 , Noam Izenberg wrote: > >> It could be argued that until he went on the lam, Vlad's entire >> purpose was to throw other people's lives away (and to personally do >> the throwing whenever possible to further his own (at the time, >> rather limited) philosophy.... > Well, it could also be argued that those people were throwing their > own lives away, and that Vlad was just the mechanism. I don't think I can agree. The target of an assassination rarely _asks_ to be such a target. Knowing you're taking risks is one thing, but I'd bet most of them didn't think they were throwing their lives away until Vlad came knocking on their skull. > How is assassination different from rabble-rousing? Well, in one case, > you're enforcing someone else's will by choosing to off a person. In > the other case, you're being convinced that in order to make an > omelet, a few eggs need to be broken and that you, yourself, are an > egg that may be called upon to break yourself against a very hot > cast-iron pan that happens to have some oil, garlic and chives in it. I take your point. Possibly somewhat to the side. I think assassination is a) not risk free, and b) in young Vlad's case in particular the happy confluence of his personal philosophy and desire (kill Dragaerans) with that of the Organization (kill _specific_ Dragaerans). In this very simplistic way each was the other's tool in a mutually beneficial arrangement. That Vlad grew and changed speaks of his personal development as well as the external forces affecting him. > That is all to say, just to make things pretty unobsfucated, Vlad was > part of a system. Everyone else in the system knew that they were > doing things that require walking a pretty tight line. If you stray > from the extremely tight etiquette of the organization, you may get > finalized unless you're tough enough to fight it. So, in other words, > you're gonna reap what you sow if you piss someone off. If Vlad chose > to be a part of that system, that's not a good moral choice in my > world, but in his (that is, within the Jhereg), it was pretty normal. Here I disagree a bit also. Yes Vlad was part of the system for a while, but he didn't care for it in and of itself, and bought into it only so far as it fulfilled is somewhat narrow vision - until his eyes were forced ever more open by the events around him. He 'used' the Organization as much as it used him. For a while - actually several times - it looked to me like he had a serious death wish. He knew sometime he was going to get himself killed because he _wasn't_ going to walk the line forever. I had reached this conclusion before Teckla and Phoenix. > ...Now, whether that is true or not is up to debate, BUT, to create > conflict & violence to further your own ends at the expense of other > people's lives WHILE NOT putting yourself in the same risk is > synonymous with "evil" in my book. Heh. I think this is a bit of a quibble. Vlad was certainly putting himself at risk of his life or worse (and indeed 'worse' happened on a couple occasions). The risks and stakes were much smaller for Vlad (money and single lives) than for the revolutionaries (more money and more lives), but the morality of either can be looked at though several different color lenses and appear pretty much how you would like. Mean Bronze Rig (Noam R. Izenberg, 10-4) From mklahn at mac.com Mon Jan 19 10:40:11 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 12:40:11 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: On Jan 19, 2004, at 12:15 , Noam Izenberg wrote: > > On Jan 19, 2004, at 12:42 PM, Matthew Klahn wrote: >> Well, it could also be argued that those people were throwing their >> own lives away, and that Vlad was just the mechanism. > > I don't think I can agree. The target of an assassination rarely > _asks_ to be such a target. Knowing you're taking risks is one thing, > but I'd bet most of them didn't think they were throwing their lives > away until Vlad came knocking on their skull. Perhaps you're taking me too literally? I don't mean to say that they were asking to be killed, but rather that they ran the numbers on their own little cost-benefit ratio, and decided that the risk of being assassinated successfully was out-weighed by the benefits of more territory/money/etc. Even that may not be correct, as the formula has to be something like: (predicted monetary gain) - (cost of defending against assassin) > (predicted monetary/status loss of other party) - (cost of someone hiring assassin better than my defenses) Though, of course, this is most likely not a linear equation like I put here, and "luck" does have some role in an assassination. And, not to quibble, but at least one of Vlad's targets DID actually ask to be assassinated and spent hundreds of years planning it all out... :) >> How is assassination different from rabble-rousing? Well, in one >> case, you're enforcing someone else's will by choosing to off a >> person. In the other case, you're being convinced that in order to >> make an omelet, a few eggs need to be broken and that you, yourself, >> are an egg that may be called upon to break yourself against a very >> hot cast-iron pan that happens to have some oil, garlic and chives in >> it. > > I take your point. Possibly somewhat to the side. I think > assassination is a) not risk free, and b) in young Vlad's case in > particular the happy confluence of his personal philosophy and desire > (kill Dragaerans) with that of the Organization (kill _specific_ > Dragaerans). In this very simplistic way each was the other's tool in > a mutually beneficial arrangement. That Vlad grew and changed speaks > of his personal development as well as the external forces affecting > him. Ah, but Vlad was risking his own hide while performing assassinations and even when hiring other assassins (since it would be, at least circumstantially, traceable back to himself by anyone in the Jhereg). Kelly & his band (including Cawti) knew that they could be targets after Gregory was killed, but they were actually asking the Teckla and Easterners to face armed Dragonlords in the streets with homemade weapons. Now, I didn't once hear Vlad report that Kelly was out there in the front lines with a sapling-made-spear poking it at Phoenix Guards, and while that may have happened, it wouldn't have been in the character of Kelly to do so. He was an officious prick, and not a leader-from-the-front-lines. So, while Kelly felt justified because he thought he was going to improve the lives of everyone else, he wasn't "thinking it through": it appears that you can't go against the Cycle, and he should have realized that. And, if I'm not mistaken, he may have spoken to Verra about the whole thing, and that would make it even MORE foolish to believe that he could go against the Cycle. But, maybe there is no evidence that those two met, but it seemed to be implied in Phoenix, at least to me. >> That is all to say, just to make things pretty unobsfucated, Vlad was >> part of a system. Everyone else in the system knew that they were >> doing things that require walking a pretty tight line. If you stray >> from the extremely tight etiquette of the organization, you may get >> finalized unless you're tough enough to fight it. So, in other words, >> you're gonna reap what you sow if you piss someone off. If Vlad chose >> to be a part of that system, that's not a good moral choice in my >> world, but in his (that is, within the Jhereg), it was pretty normal. > > Here I disagree a bit also. Yes Vlad was part of the system for a > while, but he didn't care for it in and of itself, and bought into it > only so far as it fulfilled is somewhat narrow vision - until his eyes > were forced ever more open by the events around him. He 'used' the > Organization as much as it used him. For a while - actually several > times - it looked to me like he had a serious death wish. He knew > sometime he was going to get himself killed because he _wasn't_ going > to walk the line forever. I had reached this conclusion before Teckla > and Phoenix. True, true, Vlad was doing all of this because he (rationally, or irrationally, consciously or unconsciously) hated Dragaerans with a passion. Then, when he realized that he _was_ at sometime in the past a Dragaeran himself, and came to realize that he didn't _really_ hate Dragaerans, as some of them were his best friends, he "grew up". I'm not saying that Vlad was right to be an assassin, but I am saying that he knew exactly what he was doing, death-wish or no. Kelly was more of a mass murderer than Vlad was, because he was convincing people to, in effect, kill themselves for him. Those innocents didn't deserve to die; Vlad's targets were not nice people, and everyone knew it. I'm not saying they deserved to die, either, but they certainly weren't innocent of anything (as Zerika herself "said" (well, through Aliera, IIRC) herself of the Jhereg Imperial contact that Vlad kills at the end of Phoenix). Though, I guess you could say that the king of Elde Island was pretty innocent, but when a god asks you to jump... >> ...Now, whether that is true or not is up to debate, BUT, to create >> conflict & violence to further your own ends at the expense of other >> people's lives WHILE NOT putting yourself in the same risk is >> synonymous with "evil" in my book. > > Heh. I think this is a bit of a quibble. Vlad was certainly putting > himself at risk of his life or worse (and indeed 'worse' happened on a > couple occasions). The risks and stakes were much smaller for Vlad > (money and single lives) than for the revolutionaries (more money and > more lives), but the morality of either can be looked at though > several different color lenses and appear pretty much how you would > like. Again, his _own_ life. Yes, morals are all relative, and I'm sure that Kelly thought he was justified in all of this. I'm saying that to me, he ain't. I guess my view is that if Kelly were alive today, he'd be trying to start a revolution against the US gov't for the massive social injustice that it fosters in this country. While I agree with that argument (i.e. massive inequity between poor & rich, and still growing), I don't think that revolution is yet justified. I also don't see the coming election as one that could possibly fix the problems; perhaps revolution is the only way. BUT, I would recommend exhausting all further means as really-good-tries before you resort to revolution. Just my $0.02. Strayed from the topic a little, haven't we? :) -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 19 11:10:46 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:10:46 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <2F869336-4AB3-11D8-8D68-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> > Kelly was more of a mass murderer than Vlad was, because he was > convincing people to, in effect, kill themselves for him. I would strongly disagree here. Kelly wasn't asking people to kill themselves for him, he was asking people to kill themselves for themselves. Kelly was asking people to revolt and to face the might of the empire on behalf of the lower classes of Teckla of Easterners, not on behalf of himself. Kelly, in way, shape, or form implies anywhere that the purpose of all of this is to put him, Kelly, in power, but to put the Teckla and Easterners in power. Kelly isn't asking people to die for him. We might get that impression from the books, but remember that the books are being told from Vlad's point of view, and I don't think I need to belabour the point that Vlad doesn't think very highly of Kelly, nor really understand the politics of the movement fully. > Those innocents didn't deserve to die; None of the Teckla and Easterners deserved to die, but if they feel that they don't deserve to be oppressed by the Empire either. And if one wanted to work under the assumption that Kelly ordered all of this, when he ordered his "troops" (if you will) to confront the Phoenix Gaurds, he didn't think they would lose, he thought they would win. Sure, that's letting some people die, because, it's war (class warfare, quite literally, to be exact), but it's convincing people to kill themselves, but rather, convincing people to kill their oppressors. >> The risks and stakes were much smaller for Vlad (money and single >> lives) than for the revolutionaries (more money and more lives), but >> the morality of either can be looked at though several different >> color lenses and appear pretty much how you would like. I think if people think a bit, you'll realize that Vlad has way more money than the revolutionaries. I mean, remember, this is the guy who owns South Adrilanka. These Teckla and Easterners own a flat and the clothes on their back. > > Again, his _own_ life. Yes, morals are all relative, and I'm sure that > Kelly thought he was justified in all of this. I'm saying that to me, > he ain't. I guess my view is that if Kelly were alive today, he'd be > trying to start a revolution against the US gov't for the massive > social injustice that it fosters in this country. While I agree with > that argument (i.e. massive inequity between poor & rich, and still > growing), I don't think that revolution is yet justified. I also don't > see the coming election as one that could possibly fix the problems; > perhaps revolution is the only way. BUT, I would recommend exhausting > all further means as really-good-tries before you resort to > revolution. > Well, in the cast of this hypothetical revolution in the U.S., I suppose Kelly would say that isn't some 215-odd years enough years of oppression? The Teckla and Easterners are somewhat analagous to the historical and present state of African Americans in this country. Hell, maybe the Teckla and Easterners have it better off every once in a while; at least the Teckla get the empire once a cycle. I mean, you do realize that the horrible injustices against the Teckla and Easterners really does warrant violent revolution. These people are treated as second-class citizens, and are serfs or maybe at best tenent farmers. So what if the Gods or the cycle ordains it? If you asked a Nazi in the 1930s, or a slave holder in the 1850s, they'd both tell you that God ordained the oppression they caused. > Just my $0.02. Strayed from the topic a little, haven't we? :) > Yeah, I think I have too. ;) From mklahn at mac.com Mon Jan 19 11:29:26 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:29:26 -0600 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <2F869336-4AB3-11D8-8D68-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <2F869336-4AB3-11D8-8D68-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: No more! No more! I can't avoid work ALL DAY! :) I see some of your points, but the one thing I disagree about is Kelly's lack of self-interest. He DOES think he knows what's best for everyone in society, and _he's_ the one who can make the Easterner/Teckla gov't work, at least in his own mind. Do you think that he's saying they should all overthrow the Empire and then some _other_ person is going to take over and establish the gov't? And, once you've got that power, you're going to become corrupt (It is inevitable). He may THINK he's being altruistic, but he's not, in my eyes. I'm sure that Stalin thought he was doing what was best for the proles in Russia, too. Oh, wait, one other thing: while the Nazi's and slave owners (and countless divine-right-of-kings Kings) thought they were doing god's will, they have the disadvantage that no one could ask god what his will was. Not a problem on Dragaera. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 19 11:44:14 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:44:14 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <2F869336-4AB3-11D8-8D68-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: > No more! No more! I can't avoid work ALL DAY! :) > Ah, but I have today off! ;-) > I see some of your points, but the one thing I disagree about is > Kelly's lack of self-interest. He DOES think he knows what's best for > everyone in society, and _he's_ the one who can make the > Easterner/Teckla gov't work, at least in his own mind. Do you think > that he's saying they should all overthrow the Empire and then some > _other_ person is going to take over and establish the gov't? And, > once you've got that power, you're going to become corrupt > (It is > inevitable). > But Kelly seems to realize that the move important thing is the movement, not his own personal power. I think Kelly would be happy to have someone else take over the empire, because, being an easterner, if he wants his government to be more than a blip on the timeline of the Empire, he's going to have to give it up at some point. > He may THINK he's being altruistic, but he's not, in my eyes. I'm sure > that Stalin thought he was doing what was best for the proles in > Russia, too. > The Stalin and Kelly comparison doesn't really work. Stalin's contribution to the revolution was setting up microphone's for Lenin, and robbing trains in the Caucusses; Kelly seems to be a bit more involved in both the theoretical and intellectual end of the revolution as well as the actual logistical planning and such of the revolution. > Oh, wait, one other thing: while the Nazi's and slave owners (and > countless divine-right-of-kings Kings) thought they were doing god's > will, they have the disadvantage that no one could ask god what his > will was. Not a problem on Dragaera. That still doesn't make it right in my eyes. If I had asked any of these countless slaveholders and divine-right-of-kings, they would have pointed to the Bible, which was God's word, and thus be justified. Even if the Gods endorse this, which they clearly do in the books, that still doesn't make it right in my eyes. -Jeff From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 19 13:12:17 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:12:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <2F869336-4AB3-11D8-8D68-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > >> Kelly was more of a mass murderer than Vlad was, because he was >> convincing people to, in effect, kill themselves for him. > >I would strongly disagree here. Kelly wasn't asking people to kill >themselves for him, he was asking people to kill themselves for >themselves. Kelly was asking people to revolt and to face the might of >the empire on behalf of the lower classes of Teckla of Easterners, not >on behalf of himself. I am not sure he was even quite asking them to do that. In /Teckla/, he wanted those who believed in him to go on strike until justice was done for their murdered comrade. In /Phoenix/, the violence mostly occurred because (a) he asked them to reject conscription, and (b) the Guard house was torched (which turned out to be a Jhereg action, of course, to make Kelly's movement look guilty). What Kelly is doing, for now, is offering Teckla and Easterners a different way to live. Things like classes in reading are part of it, (aside: I wonder how Cawti dresses when she teaches - Jhereg blacks and grays, or something closer to the peasant colors of the Teckla?) but also importantly, he's offering them a different path from the various traps that drain away their money and time and freedom, mostly gambling, the stupors and frantic excitement of drug highs, and prostitution. And he's teaching them that they *can* organize, and *how* to organize. None of these activities would have brought his group into conflict directly with the Empire *yet* - but the Jhereg Organization sees the latter sort of activities as being a direct threat to their income. So it is in their interest to *force* Kelly into conflict with the Empire - and Kelly is not averse to this, perhaps because, as a matter of principle, he wants to demonstrate that an effective group of organized Teckla and Easterners *can* resist the Empire. > >None of the Teckla and Easterners deserved to die, but if they feel >that they don't deserve to be oppressed by the Empire either. And if >one wanted to work under the assumption that Kelly ordered all of this, >when he ordered his "troops" (if you will) to confront the Phoenix >Gaurds, he didn't think they would lose, he thought they would win. In a sense, they sort-of won by getting back the moral high ground, after Vlad's testimony to the Empire proved that the Jhereg had been playing "let's you and him fight", and Vlad's deal with the King of Greenaere ended the *need* for conscription. >Sure, that's letting some people die, because, it's war (class warfare, >quite literally, to be exact), but it's convincing people to kill >themselves, but rather, convincing people to kill their oppressors. Recall that what they were doing was resisting military conscription - Kelly can make an excellent case that they are risking their lives for their *own* cause rather then being forced to risk their lives for the *Empire's* cause. It really makes a lot more sense when you think about it like that. From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Mon Jan 19 13:41:45 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:41:45 -0500 Subject: Fwd: Kelly's Movement Message-ID: <475FEE3A-4AC8-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Jeepers. When will I remember to check the reply-to field correctly? On Jan 19, 2004, at 4:12 PM, David Silberstein wrote: > ... > None of these activities would have brought his group into conflict > directly with the Empire *yet* - but the Jhereg Organization sees the > latter sort of activities as being a direct threat to their income. > So it is in their interest to *force* Kelly into conflict with the > Empire - and Kelly is not averse to this, perhaps because, as a > matter of principle, he wants to demonstrate that an effective group > of organized Teckla and Easterners *can* resist the Empire. I would note that, looked at this way, Kelly's movement, even if a raving success, is actually not a threat to the Empire or the Cycle - and doesn't ever have to be - IF the Empire is willing to adapt its power structure. I can see, however, a) the Empire not being willing to or b) certain parties being happy to make the movement _appear_ to be more of a direct threat, and thus force the issue, or, most likely c) both. But even House Jhereg _could_ re-Organize if the Empire moved that way. It would take quite an individual, or a rare group - indeed the stuff of legends - to turn Kelly's proto-revolution into a Dragaeran governmental renaissance without causing a major conflagration (heck, even _with_ the major conflagration). Where, oh where, could we find one of those? Being Zero Man (Noam Izenberg's nighttime superhero avocation) From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 19 13:43:02 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 13:43:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: >So, while Kelly felt justified because he thought he was going to >improve the lives of everyone else, he wasn't "thinking it through": >it appears that you can't go against the Cycle, and he should have >realized that. Perhaps he had in mind that the Cycle could be subordinated to a People's Republic. Consider the weakened monarchy that exists now in England, while it is the Prime Minister and Parliament who mostly control things. And yet not too long ago, England was as strong a bastion for the Divine Right of Kings as any place ever was. So perhaps he has in mind that the Houses and the Emperor will still exist after the Revolution, but in a much less powerful and absolute role, changing with the Cycle if need be, but never abrogating the rights of the people. There will probably be a place for the House of Nobles (equivalent to the House of Lords, containing representatives of all of the other Houses), but the greater role would be given to the House of Commons (Teckla and Easterners). >And, if I'm not mistaken, he may have spoken to Verra about the whole >thing, and that would make it even MORE foolish to believe that he >could go against the Cycle. But, maybe there is no evidence that >those two met, but it seemed to be implied in Phoenix, at least to >me. I think I remember the same thing you do. When Verra talks to Vlad about Kelly's movement - including the stuff about him finding ancient texts from another world and time - I think she says that she tried talking to Kelly directly, and he wouldn't listen. Although I am not sure what that means - did she manifest to him? Send him a dream of warning? I don't recall that she said specifically. I don't agree that it is necessarily foolish to go against the Gods - after all, given all we've seen of them, they are certainly neither omniscient nor omnibenevolent nor unbiased. Perhaps Kelly knew of Miklos' and Bolcsesseg's successful actions against Verra, and had in mind that revolting against the Gods was not entirely out of question. From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 19 14:01:18 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:01:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <475FEE3A-4AC8-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: >I would note that, looked at this way, Kelly's movement, even if a >raving success, is actually not a threat to the Empire or the Cycle - >and doesn't ever have to be - IF the Empire is willing to adapt its >power structure. In a similarly non-confrontational vein, a possibility that I've thought of is that Kelly's group moves out of Adrilanka. I've read a few things about communes created in the United States that were out in the hinterlands, that did OK for a while. Most eventually disappeared. But some may still exist. Another possibility is that he leaves the Empire entirely, going East, or West to Greenaere or Elde Island. This may cause trouble for the Empire in a few hundred or thousand years. We may yet see. From skzb at dreamcafe.com Mon Jan 19 14:05:15 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:05:15 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> > I don't think that revolution is yet justified. I also don't > see the coming election as one that could possibly fix the problems; > perhaps revolution is the only way. BUT, I would recommend exhausting > all further means as really-good-tries before you resort to revolution. > I beg to submit that, if we make the scientific distinction between "revolution" and "coup-de-tat" (the former being the bringing to power of a new social class; the latter being a shuffling within the same social class) then never in history has a revolution occurred before all other means were attempted. From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 19 14:10:24 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:10:24 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement References: Message-ID: <003d01c3ded9$0d373fe0$6701a8c0@DELL1> There is a significant difference between the way Vlad and Kelly are arguably sending people to their deaths. The most important thing to recognize is that the people Vlad kills, in fact, I believe everyone he assassinates while employed as an assassin, save the King of Greenaere, are members of the Organization, and as such are criminals. They are not innocents like those inspired by Kelly. Whether or not Kelly's motivations were pure, innocent and hard working Teckla and Easterners will be dying in the resistence. That's distinct from what Vlad is doing, and ignoring the motivations or causes definitely seems more immoral than Vlad's work. Akodo Bob -too tired have invent a sig From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 19 14:09:57 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:09:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > > >I would note that, looked at this way, Kelly's movement, even if a > >raving success, is actually not a threat to the Empire or the Cycle - > >and doesn't ever have to be - IF the Empire is willing to adapt its > >power structure. > > In a similarly non-confrontational vein, a possibility that I've > thought of is that Kelly's group moves out of Adrilanka. I've read a > few things about communes created in the United States that were out > in the hinterlands, that did OK for a while. Most eventually > disappeared. But some may still exist. > > Another possibility is that he leaves the Empire entirely, going East, > or West to Greenaere or Elde Island. This may cause trouble for the > Empire in a few hundred or thousand years. We may yet see. I suspect the Empire is going to experience a singularity in which a Morrolan can suppress any number of people not expert in all fields of magic, and the average Athyra can single-handedly defeat the average conventional army. I don't see the Islands or the East being of much importance in future events, unless perhaps the Serioli start handing out Greater Weapons... From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 19 14:13:55 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:13:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: > > > I don't think that revolution is yet justified. I also don't > > see the coming election as one that could possibly fix the problems; > > perhaps revolution is the only way. BUT, I would recommend exhausting > > all further means as really-good-tries before you resort to revolution. > > > > I beg to submit that, if we make the scientific distinction between > "revolution" and "coup-de-tat" (the former being the bringing to power of a > new social class; the latter being a shuffling within the same social class) > then never in history has a revolution occurred before all other means were > attempted. The Roman empire's army uprising in whatever-it-was-CE? Some of the more abrupt transitions in Hellenic Greece? From warbi at warbi.net Mon Jan 19 16:09:11 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:09:11 -0800 Subject: Greater Weapons Message-ID: <0e4501c3dee9$a29dc260$3dadfea9@warbi> > I suspect the Empire is going to experience a singularity in which > a Morrolan can suppress any number of people not expert in all fields > of magic, and the average Athyra can single-handedly defeat the average > conventional army. I don't see the Islands or the East being of much > importance in future events, unless perhaps the Serioli start handing out > Greater Weapons... Did you notice how nervous Verra got when Vlad had the newly made Greater Weapon? lol warbi From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 19 14:20:22 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:20:22 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 19, 2004, at 2:09 PM, Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > >> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: >> >>> I would note that, looked at this way, Kelly's movement, even if a >>> raving success, is actually not a threat to the Empire or the Cycle - >>> and doesn't ever have to be - IF the Empire is willing to adapt its >>> power structure. >> >> In a similarly non-confrontational vein, a possibility that I've >> thought of is that Kelly's group moves out of Adrilanka. I've read a >> few things about communes created in the United States that were out >> in the hinterlands, that did OK for a while. Most eventually >> disappeared. But some may still exist. >> I don't think Kelly ever said that he wished to abolish private property and create communes. Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong. However, I should note that although it's fine to mention the communes you mention above, there have been wildly successful communes lasting centuries with hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people. These communes, are namely, the Native American societies of North America, particularly the ones in existence on what is now the east coast of the United States. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 19 14:36:33 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:36:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: By the way, it's Martin Luther King Day, and we should note that he and the other leaders of the civil rights movement got a lot of people killed. Himself, and hundreds who don't have days in their memory. From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 19 14:39:22 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:39:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: >On Jan 19, 2004, at 2:09 PM, Philip Hart wrote: > >> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: >> >>> In a similarly non-confrontational vein, a possibility that I've >>> thought of is that Kelly's group moves out of Adrilanka. I've read a >>> few things about communes created in the United States that were out >>> in the hinterlands, that did OK for a while. Most eventually >>> disappeared. But some may still exist. >>> > >I don't think Kelly ever said that he wished to abolish private >property and create communes. Someone, please correct me if I'm >wrong. Well, he didn't. This was just a notion, assuming things in Adrilankha got to the point where leaving was easier than staying. Also, communes need not abolish private property. The point is that by living communally, even especially seperate from the Empire, he can demonstrate that his social principles are sound. >However, I should note that although it's fine to mention the communes >you mention above, there have been wildly successful communes lasting >centuries with hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people. >These communes, are namely, the Native American societies of North >America, particularly the ones in existence on what is now the east >coast of the United States. True, but they tended to come into conflict with each other. And they had some very real problems when they came into conflict with a society with higher technology (and with more diseases). From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 19 14:48:24 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:48:24 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <96BC2316-4AD1-11D8-AFCA-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> > True, but they tended to come into conflict with each other. And they > had some very real problems when they came into conflict with a > society with higher technology (and with more diseases). I'd be careful there. Yes, they came into conflict with each other. It was not their socio-economic structure that destroyed the Native Americans when they came into conflict with the Europeans, it was the fact that they didn't have immunity to the diseases the Europeans brought with them. In fact, one should note that in Colonial times, men like William Bradford attributed the colonies success not to guns, warfare, or a superior society, but rather to the fact that great diseases wiped out the Native Americans, literally leaving cleared land perfect for crops (which the Native Americans had been farming) for the colonists. Also, it should noted that in Massachusetts, it actually became illegal to leave the town, because so many colonists fled the towns and went to live in these Native Americans communes, never to return. There are numerous accounts where after colonists recaptured former colonists now living with the Native Americans, that the former colonists did not want to return. But I suppose this is a bit of a tangent. From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 19 14:49:41 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:49:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: >By the way, it's Martin Luther King Day, and we should note that he >and the other leaders of the civil rights movement got a lot of >people killed. Himself, and hundreds who don't have days in their >memory. > That's an excellent point. The assertions that Kelly is somehow a mass-murderer of all of the "innocent" Easterners and Teckla ignores the facts that (a) Kelly is not some cynical manipulator; as best we can tell, he's an ideologue who truly believes his own propaganda, and (b) the Easterners and Teckla were not coerced into his movement; they joined because they believed in his ideas. They might be deluded, and it may turn out that Kelly is eventually going to become so insane that he creates a totalitarian personality cult, but right now, they are a *movement*, and they *all* believe that through cooperative effort, they can change things to better their lives. From warlord at dragon.com Mon Jan 19 14:57:54 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:57:54 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: David Silberstein [mailto:davids at kithrup.com] > Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 5:50 PM > To: Dragaera List > Subject: Re: Kelly's Movement > > > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > >By the way, it's Martin Luther King Day, and we should note that he > >and the other leaders of the civil rights movement got a lot of > >people killed. Himself, and hundreds who don't have days in their > >memory. > > > > That's an excellent point. > > The assertions that Kelly is somehow a mass-murderer of all of the > "innocent" Easterners and Teckla ignores the facts that (a) Kelly is > not some cynical manipulator; as best we can tell, he's an ideologue > who truly believes his own propaganda, and (b) the Easterners and > Teckla were not coerced into his movement; they joined because they > believed in his ideas. > > They might be deluded, and it may turn out that Kelly is eventually > going to become so insane that he creates a totalitarian personality > cult, but right now, they are a *movement*, and they *all* believe > that through cooperative effort, they can change things to better > their lives. > This also summarizes religion quite nicely. W From mam at theworld.com Mon Jan 19 15:03:14 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:03:14 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex (fwd) Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:02:51 -0500 From: Mark A Mandel To: Pb Sanderson Subject: Re: Dzur and Sex On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, Pb Sanderson wrote: #Not to nitpick, but isn't it her linage block that has her parents coming #in, and nothing going out? Granted her seal is the dragon and dzur, but I #do not believe there's been any overt indication that Sethra is derived #from both those houses. Ah, I think "lineage block" is the phrase I was looking for. Can anyone give us a textual ref.? #Also, I think the Dzur Mountain bit is just what you do when you're a #vampire/sorceress and you're getting bored -- jump into the coffin and #sleep for a while until the cycle needs you. Heh. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 19 15:09:42 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:09:42 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement References: Message-ID: <007901c3dee1$528a5070$6701a8c0@DELL1> I think there are two problems with the idea, though Kelly, being an Easterner may not know enough about Dragereans to realize this. The first problem is that the weakening of the Monarchy in England was brought about not by the people, but by the various feudal lords and nobles. The peasants and lower class had little say in the diminishing of the Monarchical power. The Noble houses, know that with patience, their house will ascent to power, and as Nobles their conditions are not bad. The second problem is that unlike humans, where there is no fundamental difference between different people. there are major fundamental differences between the various houses of Dragereans, and even more difference between the Monarch and her subjects. Each member of each of the houses seems to possess traits of their namesake animal. And I would argue that some of them are not merely social constructions but instead inborn genetic traits. As for Zerika, not only can one unequivocally claim that she rules through the divine right of the gods (the Lords of Judgment did give the Orb to her after all), but as Empress she has absolute life or death power over every person connected to the Orb. These inherent differences are going to make it very difficult to rally support in other Houses, (since the various House do not experience the same oppression, nor do they have the same views and ideas), and rallying an Army of Teckla and Easterners will almost certainly fail (being as they have the least inclination or spine for war as well as the poorest armaments and magical capabilties; not to mention the likelyhood of the 16 other Houses opposing them ), and this is all ignoring the fact that the Cycle will almost certainly prevent such a revolution from actually forcing the Emperess to cede away power. Now if Kelly's goal was to have enhanced rights for Easterners and Teckla, there must be better avenues for him to do so, especially with the rumours of an Easterner lover. However, Zerika is a Phoenix, and one who will not become decadent. Not only are the Phoneix in a way the most imperial of the houses and least likely to conceed power aways, especially due to threats, but from what I have seen of her in Paths of the Dead, and Lord of Castle Black (admitting the teneous nature of the facts found within) she doesn't seem like one who would take threats well. -Akodo Bob > >So, while Kelly felt justified because he thought he was going to > >improve the lives of everyone else, he wasn't "thinking it through": > >it appears that you can't go against the Cycle, and he should have > >realized that. > > Perhaps he had in mind that the Cycle could be subordinated to a > People's Republic. Consider the weakened monarchy that exists now in > England, while it is the Prime Minister and Parliament who mostly > control things. And yet not too long ago, England was as strong a > bastion for the Divine Right of Kings as any place ever was. > > So perhaps he has in mind that the Houses and the Emperor will still > exist after the Revolution, but in a much less powerful and absolute > role, changing with the Cycle if need be, but never abrogating the > rights of the people. There will probably be a place for the House of > Nobles (equivalent to the House of Lords, containing representatives > of all of the other Houses), but the greater role would be given to > the House of Commons (Teckla and Easterners). From mam at theworld.com Mon Jan 19 15:12:34 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:12:34 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <0dd901c3debd$52181100$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, warbi wrote: # As for Mario, he is actually a figment of everyone's imagination! warbi I am not. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 19 15:12:54 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:12:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <96BC2316-4AD1-11D8-AFCA-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: >> True, but they tended to come into conflict with each other. And they >> had some very real problems when they came into conflict with a >> society with higher technology (and with more diseases). > > >I'd be careful there. Yes, they came into conflict with each other. >It was not their socio-economic structure that destroyed the Native >Americans when they came into conflict with the Europeans, it was the >fact that they didn't have immunity to the diseases the Europeans >brought with them. Yup, yup. I've read /Lies my Teacher Told Me/ and /Guns, Germs and Steel/, so I know that diseases were very important, probably primary in decimating the native populations. The thing is, the technology was also important - and there the socio-economic structure was more of a problem; a society needs a higher and more sedentary population in order to compete with higher tech. The farming tribes might have been able to learn blacksmithing and other tool usage, but the nomadic hunter-gatherers would have had more problems. > In fact, one should note that in Colonial times, men like William >Bradford attributed the colonies success not to guns, warfare, or a >superior society, but rather to the fact that great diseases wiped >out the Native Americans, literally leaving cleared land perfect for >crops (which the Native Americans had been farming) for the >colonists. Yup. /Lies my Teacher Told Me/ describes how the famous Squanto came >from just such a disease-destroyed village. > Also, it should noted that in Massachusetts, it actually became >illegal to leave the town, because so many colonists fled the towns >and went to live in these Native Americans communes, never to return. >There are numerous accounts where after colonists recaptured former >colonists now living with the Native Americans, that the former >colonists did not want to return. Yes, I remember that as well. There was a certain amount of speculation that some of the notions of individual sovreignity among the early colonists arose because of exposure to the democratic nature of many of the tribes. >But I suppose this is a bit of a tangent. Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at only 1 point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 6th Century, which was an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in what we now know as Poland... OTOH: If you never go off on tangents, you keep going around in circles. From mam at theworld.com Mon Jan 19 15:20:14 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:20:14 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: #The Stalin and Kelly comparison doesn't really work. Stalin's #contribution to the revolution was setting up microphone's for Lenin, #and robbing trains in the Caucusses; Kelly seems to be a bit more Aughhhh!!! That's "Caucasus". I would leave this one unmentioned, but coming in a discussion of violence and politics, at this precise point in the US electoral process, it cries out for attention. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Mon Jan 19 15:20:27 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:20:27 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: <96BC2316-4AD1-11D8-AFCA-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040119232027.GA12687@ofb.net> On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 03:12:54PM -0800, David Silberstein wrote: > Yup, yup. I've read /Lies my Teacher Told Me/ and /Guns, Germs and > Steel/, so I know that diseases were very important, probably primary > in decimating the native populations. The thing is, the technology Also "1491" http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm "A year later [1607] Sir Ferdinando Gorges-British despite his name-tried to establish an English community in southern Maine. It had more founders than Plymouth and seems to have been better organized. Confronted by numerous well-armed local Indians, the settlers abandoned the project within months. The Indians at Plymouth would surely have been an equal obstacle to my ancestor and his ramshackle expedition had disease not intervened." > Yes, I remember that as well. There was a certain amount of > speculation that some of the notions of individual sovreignity among > the early colonists arose because of exposure to the democratic nature > of many of the tribes. Also that the Constitution was based on the constitution of the Iroquois Federation. -xx- Damien X-) From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Mon Jan 19 15:24:31 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:24:31 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040119232431.GB12687@ofb.net> > >>> In a similarly non-confrontational vein, a possibility that I've > >>> thought of is that Kelly's group moves out of Adrilanka. I've read a > >>> few things about communes created in the United States that were out > >>> in the hinterlands, that did OK for a while. Most eventually Often not very distant values of 'hinterlands'. The problem here might be the availability of land. Everything's divvied up to one lord or another, and probably not bought and sold much. Not like the US situation where even poor people could homestead frontier land. -xx- Damien X-) From casey at the-bat.net Mon Jan 19 15:26:14 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:26:14 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <003d01c3ded9$0d373fe0$6701a8c0@DELL1> Message-ID: Akodo Bob writ: > There is a significant difference between the way Vlad > and Kelly are arguably sending people to their deaths. The > most important thing to recognize is that the people Vlad > kills, in fact, I believe everyone he assassinates while > employed as an assassin, save the King of Greenaere, are > members of the Organization, and as such are criminals. They > are not innocents like those inspired by Kelly. Whether or > not Kelly's motivations were pure, innocent and hard working > Teckla and Easterners will be dying in the resistence. > That's distinct from what Vlad is doing, and ignoring the > motivations or causes definitely seems more immoral than Vlad's work. I must disagree. Furthermore, I think Vlad ultimately concludes he disagrees, too. Vlad did the things he did for money and power. There is no indication that Kelly seeks either of these. Killing criminals is not per se less immoral than killing innocents, though I think there is a wide distinction between sending an assassin out to put a knife in someone's eye and teaching a peasant how to read and think for themself. Furthermore, in the everyday working of the organization, they beat up deadbeat borrowers, paid prostitutes to sell their bodies, etc. I need to go back and reread the territory war bits, but were all of the people that were killed actually Jhereg? This is why Vlad signed over South Adrilankha to Cawti. He couldn't figure out a moral path, so he dumped the responsibility onto someone he thought had enough motivation to find one. Then he hightailed out of town. By the end of _Issola_, he doesn't need conventional power (or money) to keep him safe from competitors in the House. He could probably now figure out a way to manage South Adrilankha, but since the next book is _Tiassa_, I think perhaps he will have other concerns. (Unless Steve's going to backtrack in the timeline again.) Really, setting up Vlad the mobster as somehow more moral than Kelly misses the whole thrust of Vlad's arc through _Teckla_, _Phoenix_, _Athyra_, _Orca_, and _Issola_. Casey Substitute ethical for moral above if you prefer. I'm only using the term chosen by Bob to be consistent. From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 19 15:26:36 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:26:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:02:51 -0500 >To: Pb Sanderson > >On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, Pb Sanderson wrote: > >#Not to nitpick, but isn't it her linage block that has her parents coming >#in, and nothing going out? Granted her seal is the dragon and dzur, but I >#do not believe there's been any overt indication that Sethra is derived >#from both those houses. > >Ah, I think "lineage block" is the phrase I was looking for. Can anyone >give us a textual ref.? You mean this?: FHYA, chapter 8, p. 103(mmpb): Her lineage block, similarly, is in the form of a downward-pointing arrowhead or triangle, entirely self-contained, with no lines entering or emerging, as if her maternal and paternal ancestor had appeared from nowhere at all, begotten her, and vanished." Some pararectal ideation here: http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/7028 Linguistic note: He says "arrowhead". Hey, I thought those were new! Although perhaps they were better known by the time of Norathar's reign. From warlord at dragon.com Mon Jan 19 15:27:04 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:27:04 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark A Mandel [mailto:mam at theworld.com] > Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 6:13 PM > To: warbi > Cc: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Dzur and Sex > > > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, warbi wrote: > > # As for Mario, he is actually a figment of everyone's > imagination! warbi > > I am not. > Cool! A figure of my argumentation. W From mam at theworld.com Mon Jan 19 15:29:08 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:29:08 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: # Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at # only 1 point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 6th # Century, which was an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in what # we now know as Poland... Euclid. fl circa 300 B.C. -- Merriam-Webster OnLine # #OTOH: # # If you never go off on tangents, you keep going around in circles. Nitpicks aside, I *do* like that! -- Mark A. Mandel From warbi at warbi.net Mon Jan 19 17:22:15 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:22:15 -0800 Subject: Proof Required Message-ID: <0e7401c3def3$d7e78780$3dadfea9@warbi> > I am not. > > -- Mark A. Mandel > http://cracksandshards.com > a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website Hehe- prove it. And remember, Descartes never got rid of the supposed evil genius who controlled perceptions. ;-) warbi From mam at theworld.com Mon Jan 19 15:34:16 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:34:16 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: #You mean this?: # # FHYA, chapter 8, p. 103(mmpb): # # Her lineage block, similarly, is in the form of a # downward-pointing arrowhead or triangle, entirely self-contained, # with no lines entering or emerging, as if her maternal and # paternal ancestor had appeared from nowhere at all, begotten her, # and vanished." [...] #Linguistic note: He says "arrowhead". Hey, I thought those were new! #Although perhaps they were better known by the time of Norathar's #reign. Suppose that the Dragaeran symbol used here literally translates as "spearpoint", but it is also used as the name of this shape. A good translator will use the English word that is conventionally used for the shape, "arrowhead", rather than translating the expression literally. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 19 15:35:08 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:35:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > ># Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at ># only 1 point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 6th ># Century, which was an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in what ># we now know as Poland... > >Euclid. fl circa 300 B.C. > -- Merriam-Webster OnLine I think part of the humour of that quote is that it gets some of the information very wrong. The line fails to interect the curve at any point, as it were. ># >#OTOH: ># ># If you never go off on tangents, you keep going around in circles. > >Nitpicks aside, I *do* like that! > It's also amusing, but of course, pedantically speaking, the curves that lines can be tangents to need not be circles at all. From mam at theworld.com Mon Jan 19 15:36:26 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:36:26 -0500 Subject: Proof Required In-Reply-To: <0e7401c3def3$d7e78780$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, warbi wrote: # Hehe- prove it. And remember, Descartes never got rid of the supposed #evil genius who controlled perceptions. But I can. Come to Noreascon 4 (http://www.noreascon.org/) and attend the premiere (and sole) performance of The Filkado, a space opera. Your humble correspondent has the role of Dr. McKoko, the Lord High Evil Genius. -- Mark A. Mandel, The Filker With No Nickname http://mark.cracksandshards.com/filk.html Now on the Filker's Bardic Webring! From jtrager at keyway.net Mon Jan 19 15:53:30 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (Trager) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:53:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement Message-ID: <200401192353.i0JNrUXm094049@shrek.keyway.net> Perhaps, then, there is a more correct (although less poetic) alternate phrasing: If you never go off on tangents, there's no need to create derivatives. > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > >On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > > > ># Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve at > ># only 1 point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 6th > ># Century, which was an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in what > ># we now know as Poland... > > > >Euclid. fl circa 300 B.C. > > -- Merriam-Webster OnLine > > I think part of the humour of that quote is that it gets some of the > information very wrong. The line fails to interect the curve at any > point, as it were. > > ># > >#OTOH: > ># > ># If you never go off on tangents, you keep going around in circles. > > > >Nitpicks aside, I *do* like that! > > > > It's also amusing, but of course, pedantically speaking, the curves > that lines can be tangents to need not be circles at all. > > From mklahn at mac.com Mon Jan 19 16:05:54 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:05:54 -0600 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6A8C0548-4ADC-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Jan 19, 2004, at 16:49 , David Silberstein wrote: > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > >> By the way, it's Martin Luther King Day, and we should note that he >> and the other leaders of the civil rights movement got a lot of >> people killed. Himself, and hundreds who don't have days in their >> memory. >> > > That's an excellent point. > > The assertions that Kelly is somehow a mass-murderer of all of the > "innocent" Easterners and Teckla ignores the facts that (a) Kelly is > not some cynical manipulator; as best we can tell, he's an ideologue > who truly believes his own propaganda, and (b) the Easterners and > Teckla were not coerced into his movement; they joined because they > believed in his ideas. > > They might be deluded, and it may turn out that Kelly is eventually > going to become so insane that he creates a totalitarian personality > cult, but right now, they are a *movement*, and they *all* believe > that through cooperative effort, they can change things to better > their lives. Maybe so, but Kelly wasn't calling for peaceful methods of resistance or change of government through any rational means of parlay or discussion; he was asking citizens to take up arms and violently resist conscription and gave a list of demands to the Empress, *telling* her that she'd better do what they say or there would be revolt. This would be more along the lines of mass suicide than resistance, if fighting breaks out, as it did in the uprising. The problem with comparisons like this is that they ignore the mechanisms used; as far as I know (and IANACRH: I am not a civil rights historian), but Dr. King was not advocating "By any means necessary"; that was Malcolm X. While Dr. King did want to see equality between races, his methods and the methods of his followers didn't seem to entail blockading major sections of urban areas with armed checkpoints and telling the President that he'd better do what they wanted or there would be a second American revolution. I guess I don't get your parallel, and I believe that you are muddying the waters. Kelly was asking those citizens to do what amounted to suicide; he *knew* that people were going to die, and he didn't do anything to try to make sure that people weren't going to die. There was no "passive resistance", no work-stoppages or strikes, no education that I could see beyond being taught to read so that they could read the literature that he was able to provide them (mainly in the form of propagandist flyers & leaflets), no "Let's go form our own society over here" movements. His solution was armed rebellion, which to me would seem to be the last argument of peasants. I don't really understand why you are defending Kelly so stringently. He was an arrogant ass who thought that he knew better than anyone how society should be run. In my mind, he's a megalomaniac! He's the LEAST trustworthy kind of revolutionist because he's so damned full of himself, and is one step away from creating a cult (if he hasn't already; there are a lot of warning signs of cult-like behavior in a lot of the followers, of which Cawti seems to not be. Remember the scene where Vlad witnesses Kelly verbally smacking Cawti down? Kelly is not reasonable, and he's willing to power over anyone who he feels isn't doing everything they can to follow his vision). Kelly is a contemptible character, and while we're seeing him through Vlad's eyes, AFAICT Steve didn't mean to make him anything but contemptible. Sure, his philosophy has truth in it. I believe that we have nearly as much injustice going on in our country right now as there is in Dragaera during the period that is covered in Teckla & Phoenix. If I had the ability to inspire people like Kelly obviously does, I would NOT use it to incite armed rebellion against the US Gov't because I know that it would get far too many people killed, and I would feel no small amount of responsibility in getting those people killed. I don't think that Kelly gives a damn about individuals. At ALL. He sees everyone as for or against him, and they are apparently born into those roles. If you're a noble, you're against him unless you come to sign on with his campaign. If you're a Teckla or Easterner, you are with him; you may not know it yet, but if you have a few years, he can explain it to you. As I said in an earlier post: I'm not sure that social reform can be enacted within the framework of our current gov't with the current attitudes in our society. There are too many people who have a lot of power who will be damned if they're going to share that power (translation: money) with anyone else. Is armed revolution justified? How could it be? Would you rather die of starvation or kicking at the end of someone's spear? And, if dying, in effect, makes no difference to the society around you, that's even worse. Bah. I guess what's amazing (to me) is that one author's (relatively) short piece of fiction could inspire such hatred in me for a figment of his imagination. Kudos to you, Steve! I guess that's one way to measure success. :) -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 19 16:16:25 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:16:25 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement References: Message-ID: <003f01c3deea$a5236660$6701a8c0@DELL1> My point may not have been clear due to my crappy grammar. The line should have read something like "That's [the way Kelly leads people to their deaths] distinct from what Vlad is doing, and if you ignore the motivations or causes behind their actions, it definitely seems more immoral than what Vlad's is doing." The point you make is only true if you consider the intentions of the supposed "killers" rather than the actions themselves. A consideration I waived before making my assertion. I was only considering the actions themselves, i.e. the deaths of criminals who know the risks, over the deaths of innocents who are rebelling with a shaky ideological premise. These criminals know that by joining the Organization, they have become fair game to be killed, not only that, but they are prepared to die temporarily, being highly paid or highly valued enough to be resurrected, and accept the fact that they might be made unrevivable. Not only that, but as criminals one could argue from many points of view (say from a Utilitarian point of view) that they are less valuable to preserve than innocents, though this is a weak argument. Perhaps Kelly is more noble than Vlad, since his actions are based on high ideals and rhetoric rather than Vlad who acts for money, power, and vengeance, but I do not believe his actions are either more moral or more ethical than Vlad's work on other Jhereg. > I must disagree. Furthermore, I think Vlad ultimately concludes he > disagrees, too. Vlad did the things he did for money and power. There is > no indication that Kelly seeks either of these. Killing criminals is not > per se less immoral than killing innocents, though I think there is a wide > distinction between sending an assassin out to put a knife in someone's eye > and teaching a peasant how to read and think for themself. Furthermore, in > the everyday working of the organization, they beat up deadbeat borrowers, > paid prostitutes to sell their bodies, etc. I need to go back and reread > the territory war bits, but were all of the people that were killed actually > Jhereg? I think its true that the King of Greenare is the only non Jhereg that he actually "works" on, I got the distinct impression that one only "works" on other Jhereg. Now Heath certainlly had easterners killed, and I won't argue about the immorality of that, cause I think it's immoral too. > This is why Vlad signed over South Adrilankha to Cawti. He couldn't figure > out a moral path, so he dumped the responsibility onto someone he thought > had enough motivation to find one. Then he hightailed out of town. By the > end of _Issola_, he doesn't need conventional power (or money) to keep him > safe from competitors in the House. He could probably now figure out a way > to manage South Adrilankha, but since the next book is _Tiassa_, I think > perhaps he will have other concerns. (Unless Steve's going to backtrack in > the timeline again.) > > Really, setting up Vlad the mobster as somehow more moral than Kelly misses > the whole thrust of Vlad's arc through _Teckla_, _Phoenix_, _Athyra_, > _Orca_, and _Issola_. I fail to see how that misses the thrust of the arc. I never argued that Vlad was moral in his actions, in fact I deliberately used the negation to waive that concern, the point of my post was merely to point out that Kelly and Vlad were performing distinct deeds and that in my opinion Kelly's actions themselves were worse than Vlad's. Akodo Bob -Who generally tries to be painfully specific in his arguments because generalizations are easy to disprove. From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Mon Jan 19 16:15:49 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:15:49 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 19, 2004, at 3:20 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > > #The Stalin and Kelly comparison doesn't really work. Stalin's > #contribution to the revolution was setting up microphone's for Lenin, > #and robbing trains in the Caucusses; Kelly seems to be a bit more > > Aughhhh!!! That's "Caucasus". > Pardon my misspelling please. > I would leave this one unmentioned, but coming in a discussion of > violence and politics, at this precise point in the US electoral > process, it cries out for attention. > > -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and > Philological Busybody > a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel > http://cracksandshards.com > a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website > From rone at ennui.org Mon Jan 19 16:28:22 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:28:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <20040120002822.A2B2F26C2F@boredom.ennui.org> Matthew Klahn writes: Meh. Actually, after Teckla, my respect for Cawti plummeted. I understand her convictions, but I do agree with Vlad that it's not nice to throw other people's lives away to further your own philosophy, no matter how much good you think it's doing for everyone else. I think of it more that they weighed the furthering of their goals versus the lives they were "throwing away". At least, i hope they did. And, Teckla and Phoenix made me so mad at her that I can't really like her as a character anymore. :( I feel much like Noish-pa does... i love them, but what they are doing is foolishness. But sometimes the only way to find out you can't do something is to try. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From mklahn at mac.com Mon Jan 19 16:33:40 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:33:40 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: <4B42C655-4AE0-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Jan 19, 2004, at 16:05 , Steven Brust wrote: > >> I don't think that revolution is yet justified. I also don't >> see the coming election as one that could possibly fix the problems; >> perhaps revolution is the only way. BUT, I would recommend exhausting >> all further means as really-good-tries before you resort to >> revolution. >> > > I beg to submit that, if we make the scientific distinction between > "revolution" and "coup-de-tat" (the former being the bringing to > power of a > new social class; the latter being a shuffling within the same social > class) > then never in history has a revolution occurred before all other means > were > attempted. I had another response to this, but realized that I hadn't yet squeezed every drop of meaning from this nonunobsfucated sentence. In fact, I'm now stuck reading & re-reading it in an attempt to determine whether by the word "revolution" you imply success. Either way, the point is interesting, but if you mean to say that an attempt that fails is not revolution, but rather something along the lines of insurrection-that-couldn't-quite-become-revolution. I won't directly ask for clarification, because I know you don't want to be pedantic... :) However, I am woefully unequipped to argue this point with you, and will temporarily (until I can better educate myself) cede the point to you. Whether Kelly and his band had, indeed, exhausted all methods of improving the living conditions of Teckla and Easterners, I see no evidence that he did much else other than writing pamphlets/leaflets and evangelizing his viewpoint. It is obvious that his viewpoint had truth in it, because he was able to convince people that he was correct (which I would imagine is harder to do, probably particularly among completely uneducated people though I have no direct experience for or against this assertion, if there was no truth to what you're saying. Even religion has some truth with regards to moral conduct and education-through-parable.) It would seem to me that there would be some way to organize a large amount of labor like this without resorting to armed revolution if you could convince some people with money that it would be to the mutual benefit of everyone involved. As Zerika points out (as does Sethra in _Orca_), the Empire is still an economic structure primarily governed by trade. If you have a huge amount of available labor, wouldn't there be something that people more intelligent than me (and I'm not above saying that Kelly is most likely more intelligent than I am) could do with that resource that doesn't involve revolt? -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From rone at ennui.org Mon Jan 19 16:35:53 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 16:35:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040120003553.7777926C34@boredom.ennui.org> David Silberstein writes: I don't agree that it is necessarily foolish to go against the Gods - after all, given all we've seen of them, they are certainly neither omniscient nor omnibenevolent nor unbiased. Perhaps Kelly knew of Miklos' and Bolcsesseg's successful actions against Verra, and had in mind that revolting against the Gods was not entirely out of question. Kelly didn't exactly have a t?ltos horse by his side. And he's not merely trying to defy the gods. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From mklahn at mac.com Mon Jan 19 16:44:10 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:44:10 -0600 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <003f01c3deea$a5236660$6701a8c0@DELL1> References: <003f01c3deea$a5236660$6701a8c0@DELL1> Message-ID: On Jan 19, 2004, at 18:16 , Bob wrote: > These > criminals know that by joining the Organization, they have become fair > game > to be killed, not only that, but they are prepared to die temporarily, > being > highly paid or highly valued enough to be resurrected, and accept the > fact > that they might be made unrevivable. You know, you're bringing up a whole 'nother point that I frankly forgot about: (some forms of) death is an inconvenience to most of the people Vlad assassinated, while every death of a peasant is as permanent as if it were unrevivifiable (or Morganti, if Teckla don't go over Deathsgate, as people speculated earlier). It just seems to me that Kelly is counting on making martyrs out of quite a lot of Teckla so that the rest of society gets so revolted (heh) that they will join the revolution. Not something that places him in the top 100 people I would elect to high office. > I fail to see how that misses the thrust of the arc. I never argued > that > Vlad was moral in his actions, in fact I deliberately used the > negation to > waive that concern, the point of my post was merely to point out that > Kelly > and Vlad were performing distinct deeds and that in my opinion Kelly's > actions themselves were worse than Vlad's. You do me the honor of allowing me to agree completely (or, as Ani DiFranco would say: "Complee agretely") with your well-stated position. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Mon Jan 19 16:51:04 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 19:51:04 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: <20040120005104.GA24267@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 02:13:55PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: > > I beg to submit that, if we make the scientific distinction between > > "revolution" and "coup-de-tat" (the former being the bringing to power of a > > new social class; the latter being a shuffling within the same social class) > > then never in history has a revolution occurred before all other means were > > attempted. > The Roman empire's army uprising in whatever-it-was-CE? Some of the more > abrupt transitions in Hellenic Greece? I'd argue that *any* transfer of power in Rome which involved the army was a coup de'etat. Ignoring the word 'class' for a moment (because the Roman army and the Senate sure weren't in the same social class), it was a coup when one faction of the oligopoly of power overthrew another faction. It certianly wasn't a revolution, which implies much more of a popular uprising. The Roman army, for all it's power, was rarely anything other than a tiny fraction of the population of the Empire during the period mentioned. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 19 17:07:39 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:07:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040120005104.GA24267@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> <20040120005104.GA24267@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: > On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 02:13:55PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: > > > > I beg to submit that, if we make the scientific distinction between > > > "revolution" and "coup-de-tat" (the former being the bringing to power of a > > > new social class; the latter being a shuffling within the same social class) > > > then never in history has a revolution occurred before all other means were > > > attempted. > > > The Roman empire's army uprising in whatever-it-was-CE? Some of the more > > abrupt transitions in Hellenic Greece? > > I'd argue that *any* transfer of power in Rome which involved the army > was a coup de'etat. Ignoring the word 'class' for a moment (because the > Roman army and the Senate sure weren't in the same social class), it was > a coup when one faction of the oligopoly of power overthrew another > faction. It certianly wasn't a revolution, which implies much more of a > popular uprising. The Roman army, for all it's power, was rarely anything > other than a tiny fraction of the population of the Empire during the > period mentioned. It's been too long since I read Roman history, but I thought there were instances when the army marched from the east or wherever and installed some soldier (not always a willing one) on the throne. I don't really know what "class" means in this context, but say Sejanus was of the old class so the Praetorian control of power which I was thinking about citing doesn't work, hmm, the overthrow of the Republic isn't a counter- example, thinking out loud here, back to the first sentence. Certainly the social order wasn't overturned in those cases. If I remember my Thucydides accurately, there were plenty of cases of revolutions in city-states that just involved one faction (say the old aristocracy) inviting the city's enemies in to take out the ruling class (say the newly rich merchants), a favor that might eventually be returned by the survivors. I certainly don't know how to evaluate "all other means" though. From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Mon Jan 19 17:29:00 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 20:29:00 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> <20040120005104.GA24267@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <20040120012900.GA30379@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 05:07:39PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: > > I'd argue that *any* transfer of power in Rome which involved the army > > was a coup de'etat. Ignoring the word 'class' for a moment (because the > > Roman army and the Senate sure weren't in the same social class), it was > > a coup when one faction of the oligopoly of power overthrew another > > faction. It certianly wasn't a revolution, which implies much more of a > > popular uprising. The Roman army, for all it's power, was rarely anything > > other than a tiny fraction of the population of the Empire during the > > period mentioned. > It's been too long since I read Roman history, but I thought there were > instances when the army marched from the east or wherever and installed > some soldier (not always a willing one) on the throne. I don't really > know what "class" means in this context, but say Sejanus was of the > old class so the Praetorian control of power which I was thinking about > citing doesn't work, hmm, the overthrow of the Republic isn't a counter- > example, thinking out loud here, back to the first sentence. Certainly > the social order wasn't overturned in those cases. I'd say we're in agreement on the point that whatever happened with the army, it sure wasn't a revolution. You mention the army installing soldiers on the throne; that certianly happened. As for social class - up to about 100 BC, the army was largely composed of the upper social strata of Rome. You pretty much had to be a landowner to join. The wars of that era depleted those ranks horribly, which ultimately led Giaus Marius to start recruiting from the lowest class - the capus centi, or 'the head count.' Within 50 years the army switched >from being an all-volunteer force of upper and middle-class volunteers to a profession manned largely by the lowest. Along the way the Army saw Marius, Sulla, Julius Caesar, and others use the Army to be the weapon that tipped the balance in various coup de'etats (however the heck you spell that). By early CE, the Army knew what it's power was and became less and less willing to let incompetents from the uppermost classes (who were the higher officers) lead them into slaughter. The army became a mix of both meritocracy and popularity, pushing people they respected into senior positions regardless of class. Eventually they did as you describe, just started installing their own emperors. So unlike the comment 3 or 4 back in this thread, the Army didn't act in a social revolutionary manner (ie, one class overthrowing another). They instead became one more faction in the general Roman power games, and hence I class their actions as a coup de'tat rathern than a revolution. Whew! Sorry to be so long-winded. > If I remember my Thucydides accurately, there were plenty of cases of > revolutions in city-states that just involved one faction (say the old > aristocracy) inviting the city's enemies in to take out the ruling class > (say the newly rich merchants), a favor that might eventually be returned > by the survivors. I certainly don't know how to evaluate "all other > means" though. I'm only barely into Thucydides, but think I've seen what you're talking about. My definition of 'revolution' is admittedly seat-of-the-pants, but a small faction overthrowing a city-state with the help of an outside army doesn't match it. Coup de'main might be a better description of such overthrows. The Other Steve -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me > > > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: > > > On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 02:13:55PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > > > > > On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: > > > > > > I beg to submit that, if we make the scientific distinction between > > > > "revolution" and "coup-de-tat" (the former being the bringing to power of a > > > > new social class; the latter being a shuffling within the same social class) > > > > then never in history has a revolution occurred before all other means were > > > > attempted. > > > > > The Roman empire's army uprising in whatever-it-was-CE? Some of the more > > > abrupt transitions in Hellenic Greece? > > > > I'd argue that *any* transfer of power in Rome which involved the army > > was a coup de'etat. Ignoring the word 'class' for a moment (because the > > Roman army and the Senate sure weren't in the same social class), it was > > a coup when one faction of the oligopoly of power overthrew another > > faction. It certianly wasn't a revolution, which implies much more of a > > popular uprising. The Roman army, for all it's power, was rarely anything > > other than a tiny fraction of the population of the Empire during the > > period mentioned. > > > It's been too long since I read Roman history, but I thought there were > instances when the army marched from the east or wherever and installed > some soldier (not always a willing one) on the throne. I don't really > know what "class" means in this context, but say Sejanus was of the > old class so the Praetorian control of power which I was thinking about > citing doesn't work, hmm, the overthrow of the Republic isn't a counter- > example, thinking out loud here, back to the first sentence. Certainly > the social order wasn't overturned in those cases. > > If I remember my Thucydides accurately, there were plenty of cases of > revolutions in city-states that just involved one faction (say the old > aristocracy) inviting the city's enemies in to take out the ruling class > (say the newly rich merchants), a favor that might eventually be returned > by the survivors. I certainly don't know how to evaluate "all other > means" though. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From davids at kithrup.com Mon Jan 19 17:59:19 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:59:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <6A8C0548-4ADC-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: > >I don't really understand why you are defending Kelly so stringently. >He was an arrogant ass who thought that he knew better than anyone >how society should be run. In my mind, he's a megalomaniac! He's the >LEAST trustworthy kind of revolutionist because he's so damned full >of himself, I need to re-read /Teckla/ and /Phoenix/ before addresssing some of your other points, but I just want to say that I'm not really trying to defend Kelly, but rather, to defend the idea that revolution (or at least, great social change) is possible in Dragaera, despite the reality of the Cycle. I guess you could say that I'm defending his point-of-view, rather than defending him. For what it's worth, I agree that from what we see, Kelly is probably too arrogant and too incompetent to bring about such a change for the better. However, what we see is very much Vlad's view of Kelly, which is rather biased. To the left, I think there may be sufficient *objective* evidence that Kelly is too severely deficient in tactics, long-term planning, and simple compassion to be a true agent of change for the better. I've mentioned before a wish to see stories from Cawti's point-of-view, especially including her efforts with and for Kelly's movement. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 19 18:18:14 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 18:18:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Tangentially, the main issue that brings Kelly into conflict with the Empire is conscription (ignoring the problem of the Jhereg liking their prey to be powerless). And I don't see how a bunch of Teckla and Eastern landlubbers can possibly be of use in sea battles. Actually I don't see why the shipping lanes can't be restricted to Imperial waters and a sorcerer placed on each ship, ready to blast any enemy vessel. Actually I don't see why the Necromancer can't zap over and blast the enemy govt. Finally, it's not clear to me why Kelly should believe in the Cycle. It's clear to me he should believe in the ability of any of Vlad's friends to smear, bribe, mind-control, or assassinate the situation into control. Say you have to kill 5% of the ghetto - would it be much worse than the average big battle with the usual cannon fodder? From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Jan 19 19:43:26 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:43:26 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Neologism may very well capitulate reality. I think that "caucusses" may be a very good word indeed! On Jan 19, 2004, at 7:15 PM, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > > On Jan 19, 2004, at 3:20 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > >> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: >> >> #The Stalin and Kelly comparison doesn't really work. Stalin's >> #contribution to the revolution was setting up microphone's for Lenin, >> #and robbing trains in the Caucusses; Kelly seems to be a bit more >> >> Aughhhh!!! That's "Caucasus". >> > > Pardon my misspelling please. > >> I would leave this one unmentioned, but coming in a discussion of >> violence and politics, at this precise point in the US electoral >> process, it cries out for attention. >> >> -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and >> Philological Busybody >> a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel >> http://cracksandshards.com >> a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website >> > From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Jan 19 19:45:03 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:45:03 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <079BC4D2-4AFB-11D8-88C8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> "Meh"? Not an interjection with which I am familiar. Ken On Jan 19, 2004, at 11:43 AM, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > On Jan 18, 2004, at 14:28 , Jon Carey wrote: > >> gotta be Cawti > > Meh. Actually, after Teckla, my respect for Cawti plummeted. I > understand her convictions, but I do agree with Vlad that it's not > nice to throw other people's lives away to further your own > philosophy, no matter how much good you think it's doing for everyone > else. And, Teckla and Phoenix made me so mad at her that I can't > really like her as a character anymore. :( > > Oh, well. > > And, in my mind, Sethra cannot be Devera (and vice-versa) because of > the previously much-harped-upon "No secret identities" argument that > continues to be ignored in these threads, despite many, many, many > mails about them. Besides, Devera is Mario. > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Jan 19 19:47:18 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:47:18 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <38E830E6-4AA2-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <797611B1-4AAB-11D8-BFCD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <004e01c3ded8$516c7370$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: <58011E56-4AFB-11D8-88C8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> coup-de-tat? Would that make the sexual revolution tit-for-tat? On Jan 19, 2004, at 5:05 PM, Steven Brust wrote: > >> I don't think that revolution is yet justified. I also don't >> see the coming election as one that could possibly fix the problems; >> perhaps revolution is the only way. BUT, I would recommend exhausting >> all further means as really-good-tries before you resort to >> revolution. >> > > I beg to submit that, if we make the scientific distinction between > "revolution" and "coup-de-tat" (the former being the bringing to > power of a > new social class; the latter being a shuffling within the same social > class) > then never in history has a revolution occurred before all other means > were > attempted. > > From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Jan 19 19:48:47 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:48:47 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8D3770B0-4AFB-11D8-88C8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Ideas can be worth dying for. The contribution of King (and Gandhi) is that worthy ideas cannot be worth killing for. Ken On Jan 19, 2004, at 5:36 PM, Philip Hart wrote: > By the way, it's Martin Luther King Day, and we should note that he and > the other leaders of the civil rights movement got a lot of people > killed. > Himself, and hundreds who don't have days in their memory. > From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Jan 19 19:52:06 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:52:06 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <200401192353.i0JNrUXm094049@shrek.keyway.net> References: <200401192353.i0JNrUXm094049@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: <03E8CE35-4AFC-11D8-88C8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> This punning match is hitting a slippery slope, integral to the area we are discussing. On Jan 19, 2004, at 6:53 PM, Trager wrote: > Perhaps, then, there is a more correct (although less poetic) alternate > phrasing: > > If you never go off on tangents, there's no need to create derivatives. > >> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: >> >>> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: >>> >>> # Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve > at >>> # only 1 point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 6th >>> # Century, which was an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in > what >>> # we now know as Poland... >>> >>> Euclid. fl circa 300 B.C. >>> -- Merriam-Webster OnLine >> >> I think part of the humour of that quote is that it gets some of the >> information very wrong. The line fails to interect the curve at any >> point, as it were. >> >>> # >>> #OTOH: >>> # >>> # If you never go off on tangents, you keep going around in > circles. >>> >>> Nitpicks aside, I *do* like that! >>> >> >> It's also amusing, but of course, pedantically speaking, the curves >> that lines can be tangents to need not be circles at all. >> >> > > From rone at ennui.org Mon Jan 19 21:29:46 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 21:29:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <079BC4D2-4AFB-11D8-88C8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040120052946.9A72626C2D@boredom.ennui.org> Kenneth Gorelick writes: "Meh"? Not an interjection with which I am familiar. Psh. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Tue Jan 20 05:39:37 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 05:39:37 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <079BC4D2-4AFB-11D8-88C8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> References: <9556301E-4A9E-11D8-B16B-000393D1260C@mac.com> <079BC4D2-4AFB-11D8-88C8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <7rbq005c18vlu8fh5mfb0n3oskc5u5sqo9@4ax.com> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 22:45:03 -0500, you wrote: >"Meh"? Not an interjection with which I am familiar. Just pronounce it aloud. It sounds great, and is useful in many circumstances. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From Randi128 at aol.com Tue Jan 20 07:31:07 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:31:07 EST Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <16.3a62280d.2d3ea3bb@aol.com> In a message dated 01/19/2004 7:34:10 PM Eastern Standard Time, mklahn at mac.com writes: > It would seem to me that there would be > some way to organize a large amount of labor like this without > resorting to armed revolution if you could convince some people with > money that it would be to the mutual benefit of everyone involved. As > Zerika points out (as does Sethra in _Orca_), the Empire is still an > economic structure primarily governed by trade. If you have a huge > amount of available labor, wouldn't there be something that people more > intelligent than me (and I'm not above saying that Kelly is most likely > more intelligent than I am) could do with that resource that doesn't > involve revolt? > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > Trade of what? The Empire is still an agrarian society, and being an agrarian society any communist uprising is doomed to failure by Marx and Engles own definition of communism. Kelly is dead in the water before he even unfurls his sails. The workers cannot seize the means of production as there really isn't any means of production by industrialized standards. Abolish private property? There isn't really any private property. The nobles hold title to lands through the authority of grants and appointments by the Empress. Those lands can and have been taken away. The nobles don't even own the means of production in a monarchy, the monarch does. The nobles merely over see them for the crown. Trying to convince 'someone in power', meaning in this case Zerika only (as she owns the means of production), that it is mutually beneficial to back the revolution doesn't make any sense as it is clearly not in her best interest. What would she cede to the workers? Some nobles land grant? What would Morrolan do if Zerika tried to take away his fiefdom and turn it over to the peasants? Then you would see a revolution of the bloodiest kind. John D. Barbato, OD From TimN at rcn.com Tue Jan 20 07:49:06 2004 From: TimN at rcn.com (Timothy Nelson) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:49:06 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex? References: <16.3a62280d.2d3ea3bb@aol.com> Message-ID: <000a01c3df6d$293e8ba0$d916fea9@ananda> Can a parallel be drawn between the Divine Right of Kings, here on earth, and the grant that the Gods lend the Imperium (through the orb)? After all, Zerika rules as a steward of sorts -- with her charter granted by the Cycle itself. I'm tempted to say that, in their case, a revolution would be Very Bad (tm), as the Jenoine would certainly notice that the orange juice, so the speak, was left unguarded in the fridge. As an aside, I am quite saddened by the turn this conversation has taken! Seeing "Dzur and Sex" in the subject line makes me think...well, nevermind what it makes me think. Being married to a Dzur, you understand, my interest in such -- which may seem perverse at first! -- is strictly professional. From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Tue Jan 20 10:10:20 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:10:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <200401201810.i0KIAKg28962@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> > There is nothing written about Sethra that makes her in the least a > sexual being. As "part of Dzur Mountain", her "undead voice", etc., she > is powerful, fearsome, awe-inspiring, but sure as heck not sexy! That, my friend, is a matter of perspective. Powerful? Fearsome? Awe-inspiring? Sounds sexy to me. Besides, look at her Other Half and tell me she's not sexy.... :) Chris From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Tue Jan 20 10:42:34 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 13:42:34 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex? In-Reply-To: <000a01c3df6d$293e8ba0$d916fea9@ananda> References: <16.3a62280d.2d3ea3bb@aol.com> <000a01c3df6d$293e8ba0$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: <20040120184234.GA32549@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 10:49:06AM -0500, Timothy Nelson wrote: > Can a parallel be drawn between the Divine Right of Kings, here on earth, > and the grant that the Gods lend the Imperium (through the orb)? . . . Yes and no. Yes, they're similar because the claim of divine right by Cycle is pretty similar to that of divine right by Deity. No, they're different because the Dragaeran Gods are a lot more likely to enforce it than the Terran ones. :-) From Gaertk at aol.com Tue Jan 20 16:22:48 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:22:48 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement Message-ID: <7D75F32A.682FAECC.00048EA6@aol.com> David Silberstein writes: > What Kelly is doing, for now, is offering Teckla and > Easterners a different way to live. ?Things like classes in > reading are part of it, With propaganda as the primary reading material. > but also importantly, he's offering them a different path > from the various traps that drain away their money and time > and freedom, mostly gambling, the stupors and frantic > excitement of drug highs, and prostitution. This is the one good thing he's doing. >?And he's teaching them that they *can* organize, and > *how* to organize. And setting up pseudo-assembly lines to make lots of weapons, so they can violently oppose the Empire. Note that his followers are always armed during their protests. --KG From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Jan 20 16:48:04 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:48:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <7D75F32A.682FAECC.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <7D75F32A.682FAECC.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > David Silberstein writes: > > > What Kelly is doing, for now, is offering Teckla and > > Easterners a different way to live. ?Things like classes in > > reading are part of it, > > With propaganda as the primary reading material. From the KG-approved Primer: See Miklos. See Miklos bow to his master. Bow, Miklos, bow! See Morrolan. See skinny Morrolan. Miklos's master thinks Morrolan is a bad man. See Miklos's master say, "Charge, Miklos!" Brave Miklos! > >?And he's teaching them that they *can* organize, and > > *how* to organize. > > And setting up pseudo-assembly lines to make lots of weapons, > so they can violently oppose the Empire. I take it you advocate concerned inhabitants of the Eastern ghetto work to make their people an illiterate, disorganized, Gandhian rabble? > Note that his followers are always armed during their protests. Is this correct? Weren't there some peaceful marches before the Jhereg set up the confrontation with the Empire and before conscription? From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Tue Jan 20 16:55:18 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:55:18 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: <7D75F32A.682FAECC.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <7B998CAA-4BAC-11D8-AB82-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> >> Note that his followers are always armed during their protests. > > Is this correct? Weren't there some peaceful marches before the Jhereg > set up the confrontation with the Empire and before conscription? Does it matter if they're armed? They certainly darn well seem to have a right and reason to be armed to me! I mean, they're going to be attacked, by either Pheonix Gaurds or Jhereg. They've had their leaders assassinated. And it's not as if, in Dragaerean culture it's illegal or even ill-advised to be armed in public areas. Certainly Vlad, all of his Jhereg cohorts, and virtually ever Dragaerean we've ever met in any books is armed, often to the teeth. And I consider an Aythra with a wizard's staff or other magical implement armed. In fact, I would also argue that one can certainly have a peaceful march when armed. If one could not perform a peaceful action when armed, then I would say that the only peaceful actions in the entire Empire are in the Imperial Palace, where only the gaurds can be armed! -Jeff From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Jan 20 17:07:33 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 17:07:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <7B998CAA-4BAC-11D8-AB82-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <7D75F32A.682FAECC.00048EA6@aol.com> <7B998CAA-4BAC-11D8-AB82-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > >> Note that his followers are always armed during their protests. > > > > Is this correct? Weren't there some peaceful marches before the Jhereg > > set up the confrontation with the Empire and before conscription? > > > Does it matter if they're armed? They certainly darn well seem to have > a right and reason to be armed to me! 1) The state claims a monopoly on the use of violence. 2) The state may well allow free use of violence to nobles. 3) I'm proud to live in a state established through violent revolution. From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Wed Jan 21 08:27:06 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 08:27:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040117115036.JATJ23158.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> Message-ID: <20040121162706.67608.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> --- Ian Jamieson wrote: > > > >Here is my crazy theory for the day. Sethra is Devera when she grows > up. > >It makes complete since when you think about it. There is evidence to > back > >this up, but I am too tired and lazy at the moment to go into any > depth. > > > Now there's a theory I really like. It provides a reason for Sethra's > fondness for Vlad. It provides some explanation for the fact she doesn't > fit > in a house, she has human genes. Now if we can just come up with a > reason > for her to go back several odd thousand years to live her 'unlife'. > Maybe > she has to help her father's previous incarnation screw up the formation > of > the empire. Of course we know it's not true. If we're just entertaining ourselves with speculations, doesn't Devera have brown hair? Black, black, black is the color of Sethra's. There are ways to fix that, I guess. And speaking of that song, I was surprised to see people calling Sethra sexy, when she's never shown any interest in sex and none of the characters have shown any sexual interest in her. As far as I remember. Jerry Friedman P. S. Sorry about the extra copy, Ian. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus From casca913 at gbronline.com Wed Jan 21 14:34:01 2004 From: casca913 at gbronline.com (Charlie Smith) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:34:01 -0600 Subject: Kelly's Movement References: <003f01c3deea$a5236660$6701a8c0@DELL1> Message-ID: <005e01c3e06e$bfac9990$28570945@pentium4> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob" To: "'Dragaera List'" Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 6:16 PM Subject: Re: Kelly's Movement > I think its true that the King of Greenare is the only non Jhereg that he > actually "works" on, I got the distinct impression that one only "works" on > other Jhereg. Now Heath certainlly had easterners killed, and I won't argue > about the immorality of that, cause I think it's immoral too. > Perhaps, not counting the Dragon-Jhereg War. Or perhaps after that I created a precedent AGAINST such actions from the higher ups in the Jhereg. From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Wed Jan 21 15:15:23 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:15:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <005e01c3e06e$bfac9990$28570945@pentium4> Message-ID: <20040121231523.18363.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> --- Charlie Smith wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bob" > To: "'Dragaera List'" > Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 6:16 PM > Subject: Re: Kelly's Movement > > > > > > I think its true that the King of Greenare is the only non Jhereg that > he > > actually "works" on, I got the distinct impression that one only > "works" > on > > other Jhereg. Now Heath certainlly had easterners killed, and I won't > argue > > about the immorality of that, cause I think it's immoral too. > > > > Perhaps, not counting the Dragon-Jhereg War. Or perhaps after that I > created a precedent AGAINST such actions from the higher ups in the > Jhereg. At some point or other, Vlad threatens to kill a deadbeat Dzur (in such a way that he'll seem to have been killed ignominiously in a tavern brawl), and in _Jhereg_ Kragar explains to Leareth's stooge what will happen if the stooge doesn't reveal what Leareth did with incriminating information on a Dzur. (Same Dzur, right? I'm AWB.) So Jhereg do kill non-Jhereg now and then. For "good reason". But then I assume "work" is done for good reason, too. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Jan 21 16:26:04 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:26:04 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <20040121231523.18363.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> References: <005e01c3e06e$bfac9990$28570945@pentium4> <20040121231523.18363.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:15:23 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >At some point or other, Vlad threatens to kill a deadbeat Dzur (in >such a way that he'll seem to have been killed ignominiously in >a tavern brawl), and in _Jhereg_ Kragar explains to Leareth's stooge >what will happen if the stooge doesn't reveal what Leareth did with >incriminating information on a Dzur. (Same Dzur, right? I'm AWB.) >So Jhereg do kill non-Jhereg now and then. For "good reason". But >then I assume "work" is done for good reason, too. Or, possibly, just threaten to do so. And only if they get involved with the Jhereg. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From davids at kithrup.com Wed Jan 21 16:55:55 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:55:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: >On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:15:23 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > >>At some point or other, Vlad threatens to kill a deadbeat Dzur (in >>such a way that he'll seem to have been killed ignominiously in >>a tavern brawl), and in _Jhereg_ Kragar explains to Leareth's stooge >>what will happen if the stooge doesn't reveal what Leareth did with >>incriminating information on a Dzur. (Same Dzur, right? I'm AWB.) >>So Jhereg do kill non-Jhereg now and then. For "good reason". But >>then I assume "work" is done for good reason, too. > >Or, possibly, just threaten to do so. And only if they get involved >with the Jhereg. > Was Baritt involved with the Jhereg? In /Yendi/, we learn he was assassinated because he fell out with his former co-conspirators, by a Jhereg, even though he had nothing to do with the Jhereg. How about wossname in /Teckla/, the Easterner who had his throat cut? He wasn't involved with the Jhereg, except inasmuch Kelly's movement was involved in that it was interrupting income in South Adrilankha. From lister at insaneninjahero.com Wed Jan 21 17:19:59 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 17:19:59 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <400F253F.2030708@insaneninjahero.com> David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > > >>On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:15:23 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >> >> >>>At some point or other, Vlad threatens to kill a deadbeat Dzur (in >>>such a way that he'll seem to have been killed ignominiously in >>>a tavern brawl), and in _Jhereg_ Kragar explains to Leareth's stooge >>>what will happen if the stooge doesn't reveal what Leareth did with >>>incriminating information on a Dzur. (Same Dzur, right? I'm AWB.) >>>So Jhereg do kill non-Jhereg now and then. For "good reason". But >>>then I assume "work" is done for good reason, too. >> >>Or, possibly, just threaten to do so. And only if they get involved >>with the Jhereg. >> > > > Was Baritt involved with the Jhereg? In /Yendi/, we learn he was > assassinated because he fell out with his former co-conspirators, by a > Jhereg, even though he had nothing to do with the Jhereg. > Dunno about this one... but it seems like hiring someone to do a job on someone outside the Jhereg isn't completely unreasonable. Everyone has made much of Mario assassinating them Emperor ... noone has made anything of the fact that he wasn't a Jhereg when it happened. > How about wossname in /Teckla/, the Easterner who had his throat cut? > He wasn't involved with the Jhereg, except inasmuch Kelly's movement > was involved in that it was interrupting income in South Adrilankha. > This is about as involved as you can become... interrupting Jhereg income is ... not on the list of things you do if you want to ensure a long life for you and yours. Kisc From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 21 17:21:14 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 17:21:14 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4544F987-4C79-11D8-9921-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Well, the Teckla is easy by all accounts. Anyone messing with the organization's income is just asking for it, asking to get involved. As I recall in Teckla, they were warned before the assassination as well. On Jan 21, 2004, at 4:55 PM, David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 21 Jan 2004, lazarus wrote: > >> On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 15:15:23 -0800 (PST), you wrote: >> >>> At some point or other, Vlad threatens to kill a deadbeat Dzur (in >>> such a way that he'll seem to have been killed ignominiously in >>> a tavern brawl), and in _Jhereg_ Kragar explains to Leareth's stooge >>> what will happen if the stooge doesn't reveal what Leareth did with >>> incriminating information on a Dzur. (Same Dzur, right? I'm AWB.) >>> So Jhereg do kill non-Jhereg now and then. For "good reason". But >>> then I assume "work" is done for good reason, too. >> >> Or, possibly, just threaten to do so. And only if they get involved >> with the Jhereg. >> > > Was Baritt involved with the Jhereg? In /Yendi/, we learn he was > assassinated because he fell out with his former co-conspirators, by a > Jhereg, even though he had nothing to do with the Jhereg. > > How about wossname in /Teckla/, the Easterner who had his throat cut? > He wasn't involved with the Jhereg, except inasmuch Kelly's movement > was involved in that it was interrupting income in South Adrilankha. > From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Wed Jan 21 18:47:32 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:47:32 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040122024732.GA20266@ofb.net> On Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 04:55:55PM -0800, David Silberstein wrote: > Was Baritt involved with the Jhereg? In /Yendi/, we learn he was > assassinated because he fell out with his former co-conspirators, by a > Jhereg, even though he had nothing to do with the Jhereg. The Jhereg probably mostly kill each other, both for natural reasons like mostly dealing with each other in the first place, and for practical reasons such as not drawing attention to themselves. As long as they kill each other, or people who involved themselves in Jhereg affairs (by borrowing money, say) and came under Jhereg 'law', the Empire can afford to not really care. This doesn't rule out the occasional killing of others, especially for large sums of money. Even if the Organization disapproved, you could still get an assassin to do it. And, as pointed out, others have been killed. But I'd guess not often, and I think it's plausible that all of Vlad's paid kills were of Organization members or non-Jhereg working for Organization members, which he could rationalize as "they asked for it". Although he helped kill Loraan for pay -- not paid assassination, but killing in the course of theft. But Loraan was holding a sentient soul and is a standard prick noble anyway, so who cares? -xx- Damien X-) From scs at di.org Thu Jan 22 05:17:09 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 08:17:09 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: <400F253F.2030708@insaneninjahero.com> References: <400F253F.2030708@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: <20040122131709.GB37905@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Re Vlad killing Jhereg vs non-Jhereg -- I don't have the textref in front of me, but my memory says that Vlad only turns down work for three reasons: Person whim Risk not worth reward He doesn't do Easterners Everybody else is fair game, including gods and demons. Mind you, Vlad *does* get a lot more work killing Jheregs than, say, Dragons. But that's because assasination is a cultural thing in the Jhereg, not because Vlad has a preference for killing Jhereg. From ijamie at sympatico.ca Thu Jan 22 12:43:46 2004 From: ijamie at sympatico.ca (Ian Jamieson) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 15:43:46 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040121162706.67608.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040122204356.GSTP23158.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> > >Here is my crazy theory for the day. Sethra is Devera when she grows > up. > >It makes complete since when you think about it. There is evidence to > back > >this up, but I am too tired and lazy at the moment to go into any > depth. > > > Now there's a theory I really like. It provides a reason for Sethra's > fondness for Vlad. It provides some explanation for the fact she doesn't > fit > in a house, she has human genes. Now if we can just come up with a > reason > for her to go back several odd thousand years to live her 'unlife'. > Maybe > she has to help her father's previous incarnation screw up the formation > of > the empire. >Of course we know it's not true. If we're just entertaining >ourselves with speculations, doesn't Devera have brown hair? Black, >black, black is the color of Sethra's. There are ways to fix >that, I guess. >And speaking of that song, I was surprised to see people calling >Sethra sexy, when she's never shown any interest in sex and none of >the characters have shown any sexual interest in her. As far as I >remember. I was thinking that Devera was really Vlad's daughter not Kiera's. By the way do we have any hints from the books about who Devera's father is? I have read on some of the websites that it could be Kieron. Which means the most likely time of conception was around the time Morrolan and Vlad entered the Paths of the Dead to rescue her. Ian From mklahn at mac.com Thu Jan 22 14:35:29 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 16:35:29 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040122204356.GSTP23158.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> References: <20040122204356.GSTP23158.tomts10-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> Message-ID: <48290A7B-4D2B-11D8-83FF-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Jan 22, 2004, at 14:43 , Ian Jamieson wrote: > > I was thinking that Devera was really Vlad's daughter not Kiera's. By > the > way do we have any hints from the books about who Devera's father is? > I have > read on some of the websites that it could be Kieron. Which means the > most > likely time of conception was around the time Morrolan and Vlad > entered the > Paths of the Dead to rescue her. > > Ian Actually, not likely at all because Aliera was just a soul in a staff at that time, until Vlad & Morrolan convinced Verra to save her daughter. It is actually possible that Kieron came out of the Paths of the Dead to reclaim his greatsword (as he said he would, and seemed to be the motivation for Aliera to give said greatsword to Sethra the Younger) & also came to father Devera (no pun intended)... We just don't know that story, yet. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From jtrager at keyway.net Thu Jan 22 14:58:12 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (Trager) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 14:58:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <200401222258.i0MMwCGu002852@shrek.keyway.net> That was how I'd always guessed it. Then again, Aliera might have decided in the PotD that Kieron was just really hot, so she took his sword to give her a pretext to see him again. For personal reasons, not the political ones we'd always assumed. That is SO un-Aliera. Makes for an amusing thought though. > > On Jan 22, 2004, at 14:43 , Ian Jamieson wrote: > > > > I was thinking that Devera was really Vlad's daughter not Kiera's. By > > the > > way do we have any hints from the books about who Devera's father is? > > I have > > read on some of the websites that it could be Kieron. Which means the > > most > > likely time of conception was around the time Morrolan and Vlad > > entered the > > Paths of the Dead to rescue her. > > > > Ian > > Actually, not likely at all because Aliera was just a soul in a staff > at that time, until Vlad & Morrolan convinced Verra to save her > daughter. It is actually possible that Kieron came out of the Paths of > the Dead to reclaim his greatsword (as he said he would, and seemed to > be the motivation for Aliera to give said greatsword to Sethra the > Younger) & also came to father Devera (no pun intended)... We just > don't know that story, yet. > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > > From matthew at infodancer.org Thu Jan 22 15:05:49 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 17:05:49 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <200401222258.i0MMwCGu002852@shrek.keyway.net> References: <200401222258.i0MMwCGu002852@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: <20040122230549.GA2220@infodancer.org> On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 02:58:12PM -0800, Trager wrote: > That was how I'd always guessed it. > Then again, Aliera might have decided in the PotD that Kieron was just > really hot, so she took his sword to give her a pretext to see him > again. For personal reasons, not the political ones we'd always > assumed. > That is SO un-Aliera. Makes for an amusing thought though. Then again, since Aliera is boinking Mario, and of course Mario can't just be Mario, and since we know time moves strangely in the Paths, maybe Kieron left the Paths (prompted by Aliera's actions) and was reincarnated as Mario? It would be just like him to have no qualms about ending the cycle that he began in the first place. Not to mention, a kind of poetic justice. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From Gaertk at aol.com Thu Jan 22 15:44:52 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:44:52 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <56265620.32FAD58A.00048EA6@aol.com> Matthew Klahn writes: > On Jan 22, 2004, at 14:43 , Ian Jamieson wrote: >> >> I was thinking that Devera was really Vlad's daughter not >> Kiera's. By the way do we have any hints from the books >> about who Devera's father is? I have read on some of the >> websites that it could be Kieron. Which means the most >> likely time of conception was around the time Morrolan and >> Vlad entered the Paths of the Dead to rescue her. > > Actually, not likely at all because Aliera was just a soul > in a staff at that time, until Vlad & Morrolan convinced > Verra to save her daughter. But her body had spent the past 500 years in the Halls, and even as a soulless corpse, she's pretty damn hot. If you're a Dragaeran. For me, I'm still trying to decide between Daro, Teldra, and pre-Teckla Cawti. And Devera is already as glompable as Daymar; if she ever hits puberty, watch out! --KG From mklahn at mac.com Thu Jan 22 16:20:25 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 18:20:25 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <56265620.32FAD58A.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <56265620.32FAD58A.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Jan 22, 2004, at 17:44 , Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > But her body had spent the past 500 years in the Halls, and > even as a soulless corpse, she's pretty damn hot. If you're > a Dragaeran. Ew. Ew. Ew. I'm trying to come up with something clever for this space, but all that comes to mind is: "Ew. Ew. Ew." To each his own, I s'pose. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From mam at theworld.com Fri Jan 23 11:29:48 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:29:48 -0500 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: #On Jan 19, 2004, at 18:16 , Bob wrote: # #> These #> criminals know that by joining the Organization, they have become fair #> game #> to be killed, not only that, but they are prepared to die temporarily, #> being #> highly paid or highly valued enough to be resurrected, and accept the #> fact #> that they might be made unrevivable. # #You know, you're bringing up a whole 'nother point that I frankly #forgot about: (some forms of) death is an inconvenience to most of the #people Vlad assassinated, while every death of a peasant is as #permanent as if it were unrevivifiable (or Morganti, if Teckla don't go #over Deathsgate, as people speculated earlier). Now, hold on there. I don't think being sent over Deathsgate Falls has anything to do with the possibility of being reincarnated; it's an honor they give some of the dead. Have you got textev? -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Fri Jan 23 14:16:53 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:16:53 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <200401222258.i0MMwCGu002852@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Trager wrote: #That was how I'd always guessed it. # #Then again, Aliera might have decided in the PotD that Kieron was just #really hot, so she took his sword to give her a pretext to see him #again. For personal reasons, not the political ones we'd always #assumed. Ahhh... weren't they brother and sister in Kieron's lifetime, along with Vlad? -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 23 14:24:06 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:24:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Trager wrote: > > #That was how I'd always guessed it. > # > #Then again, Aliera might have decided in the PotD that Kieron was just > #really hot, so she took his sword to give her a pretext to see him > #again. For personal reasons, not the political ones we'd always > #assumed. > > Ahhh... weren't they brother and sister in Kieron's lifetime, along with > Vlad? _Jhereg_, pg 114/5 - Dolivar was Kieron's brother, Aliera was Dolivar's brother, they "started out as one family". This has been making me queasy for a long time, but I figure, Different bodies, no harm done. From davids at kithrup.com Fri Jan 23 14:46:10 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 14:46:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: [On the original subject of Dzur and cross-House shenanigans] On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: >I would however like to reiterate my Yendis-sleep-around-a-lot theory, >accounting for both their lack of House features and their low status. Yendi have low status? Well, they have reputations for being deceptive, which is not entirely the same thing. >Re the spoiler below, I'm sticking with my they're-gay theory for now. I tend to doubt it, but perhaps we shall see. >Also re the spoiler, see _TLoCB_, top of page 234. > [spoiler space for /Lord of Castle Black/ inserted again] Ah, yes. I see that I forgot to mention Tazendra and her desire for a permanent union with Aerich. And from PotD, the shameless cohabitation of Lord Shant and Lady Lewchin, also a Dzur and a non-Dzur. I realize that my earlier post was somewhat selective in the information presented. After all, Dragons too seem to be interested in cross-House liasons (Jenicor & Pel, Aliera & Mario, etc). However, Dzur seem to be less careful about having these liasons and letting people know about them, and sometimes less careful about preventing, well, you know. It occurs to me that in /Sethra Lavode/, Khaavren may well see Illista for the first time in 700 years or so, recalling to him, no doubt to his great embarrassment, his own youthful cross-House lust. Perhaps he will be prompted to seek forgiveness from Piro, who, after all, is not much older than Khaavren was at that time. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 23 15:32:06 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 15:32:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > > [On the original subject of Dzur and cross-House shenanigans] > > On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > >I would however like to reiterate my Yendis-sleep-around-a-lot theory, > >accounting for both their lack of House features and their low status. > > Yendi have low status? Well, they have reputations for being > deceptive, which is not entirely the same thing. I think they have low status - at least among Dragons (though Morrolan is tolerant of tSiG) - I seem to recall "yendi" being used as a verb meaning "weasel" - "yendi your way out of responsiblity" - and "Yendi" being pronounced as a term of abuse. These would be from the early books and hence are less canonical. > [spoiler space for /Lord of Castle Black/ inserted again] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Ah, yes. I see that I forgot to mention Tazendra and her desire > for a permanent union with Aerich. Not a desire exactly - she wouldn't act on it if she could, for example. Anyway, it's not like my desire for, say, Uma Thurman. > I realize that my earlier post was somewhat selective in the > information presented. After all, Dragons too seem to be interested > in cross-House liasons (Jenicor & Pel, Aliera & Mario, etc). However, > Dzur seem to be less careful about having these liasons and letting > people know about them, and sometimes less careful about preventing, > well, you know. > > It occurs to me that in /Sethra Lavode/, Khaavren may well see Illista > for the first time in 700 years or so, recalling to him, no doubt to > his great embarrassment, his own youthful cross-House lust. Perhaps > he will be prompted to seek forgiveness from Piro, who, after all, is > not much older than Khaavren was at that time. I think the taboo is not sleeping across the tracks but marrying/hybridizing across the tracks. I don't recall anyone being shy about noting the former. From jtrager at keyway.net Fri Jan 23 15:34:33 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (Trager) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 15:34:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <200401232334.i0NNYXFo041271@shrek.keyway.net> Oops. Good point. Although, one must remember how genetic heritage interacts with reincarnation of the soul. Maybe this is just one of those oddities... > Ahhh... weren't they brother and sister in Kieron's lifetime, along with > Vlad? > > -- Mark A. Mandel > http://cracksandshards.com > a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website > > > From TimN at rcn.com Fri Jan 23 17:18:40 2004 From: TimN at rcn.com (Timothy Nelson) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 20:18:40 -0500 Subject: Wife comment on Dzur and Sex References: Message-ID: <004301c3e218$01313380$d916fea9@ananda> When I told her that Kieron was Devera's daddy, my wife (who is an avid fan as well) said... "Is that official, or is he lying?" Steve, I thought you'd like to know that your reputation for sneakiness has spread beyond this little mailing list realm. ;) - Tim From lister at insaneninjahero.com Fri Jan 23 17:37:14 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 17:37:14 -0800 Subject: Wife comment on Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <004301c3e218$01313380$d916fea9@ananda> References: <004301c3e218$01313380$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: <4011CC4A.2010804@insaneninjahero.com> Timothy Nelson wrote: > When I told her that Kieron was Devera's daddy, my wife (who is an avid fan > as well) said... > > "Is that official, or is he lying?" > The one mistake your wife (may have) made... I don't see that the two conditions are mutually exclusive, when it comes to our esteemed author. Kisc > Steve, I thought you'd like to know that your reputation for sneakiness has > spread beyond this little mailing list realm. ;) > > - Tim > > > From greyw01f at hotmail.com Fri Jan 23 20:54:55 2004 From: greyw01f at hotmail.com (Jon Carey) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 04:54:55 +0000 Subject: heh heh allllright Message-ID: With regards to Dzur and not really caring who knows about their participation in an action that is generally considered taboo, well, I would think that that fits perfectly with their moral characters. Furthermore, to say that Aliera is "fiery" and "unconcerned" with her reputation might be small exaggerations. And who's to say that Mario wasn't once a Dzur ;) Pel is a Yendi. He could have been *playing* a Dzur :P Anyway, whoever gets the reference that is the subject line gets a cookie. Jon _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/features&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Fri Jan 23 22:39:24 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 22:39:24 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0C60209B-4E38-11D8-87A6-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> >> I realize that my earlier post was somewhat selective in the >> information presented. After all, Dragons too seem to be interested >> in cross-House liasons (Jenicor & Pel, Aliera & Mario, etc). However, >> Dzur seem to be less careful about having these liasons and letting >> people know about them, and sometimes less careful about preventing, >> well, you know. >> >> It occurs to me that in /Sethra Lavode/, Khaavren may well see Illista >> for the first time in 700 years or so, recalling to him, no doubt to >> his great embarrassment, his own youthful cross-House lust. Perhaps >> he will be prompted to seek forgiveness from Piro, who, after all, is >> not much older than Khaavren was at that time. > > > I think the taboo is not sleeping across the tracks > but marrying/hybridizing across the tracks. I don't > recall anyone being shy about noting the former. Don't we learn, in Teckla, when Vlad talks to Cheryl about her former job as a prostitute, and Vlad mentions that to dragaereans, prostitution and sex itself is viewed very differently. I'm not quite sure how to articulate it, except that to dragaereans sex is entirely separate from marriage. Of course, using a sort of contrary logic, if the taboo WERE for sleeping across the tracks, how would a house of prostitution work in the Organization? Would some of the "tags" be Jhereg, others Teckla, etc., etc. We never learn anything that would support something like that, so I'm inclined to agree that the taboo is more marrying and hybridizing rather than sleeping. From bonham15 at cox.net Fri Jan 23 23:43:57 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 01:43:57 -0600 Subject: heh heh allllright References: Message-ID: <002e01c3e24d$d35618a0$33856044@user79dn2jmjai> family guy. the neighbor. i want my cookie. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Carey" To: Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 10:54 PM Subject: heh heh allllright > > > With regards to Dzur and not really caring who knows about their > participation in an action that is generally considered taboo, well, I would > think that that fits perfectly with their moral characters. > > Furthermore, to say that Aliera is "fiery" and "unconcerned" with her > reputation might be small exaggerations. And who's to say that Mario wasn't > once a Dzur ;) > > Pel is a Yendi. He could have been *playing* a Dzur :P > > Anyway, whoever gets the reference that is the subject line gets a cookie. > > Jon > > _________________________________________________________________ > Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. > http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/features&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca > From davids at kithrup.com Fri Jan 23 23:49:02 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:49:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: >On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > >> >> [On the original subject of Dzur and cross-House shenanigans] >> > >> [spoiler space for /Lord of Castle Black/ inserted again] >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Ah, yes. I see that I forgot to mention Tazendra and her desire >> for a permanent union with Aerich. > >Not a desire exactly - she wouldn't act on it if she could, for >example. Would she not? One of my pararectal notions is that if Aerich, were, say, severely injured, Tazendra might insist on nursing him back to health. And Aerich might agree, in a moment of weakness, to allow the nursing to become a little more intimate than necessary. And Tazendra might somehow forget the elementary sorcerous precautiouns, and become pregnant. And the result might be that rather fierce young man wearing Lyorn colours claiming to be the Duke of Arylle, who challenges Paresh (Tazendra presumably telling him that his father was a Lyorn, and the Duke, but being too embarrased to admit that she is his mother, and that the youth is thus a crossbreed). Hmm. It might work better the other way around, with Tazendra being injured (and thus unable to perform the sorcery), and Aerich giving in to her upon seeing her so vulnerable. Or perhaps both of them might be injured, and are unable to resist falling into each others arms. > >> It occurs to me that in /Sethra Lavode/, Khaavren may well see Illista >> for the first time in 700 years or so, recalling to him, no doubt to >> his great embarrassment, his own youthful cross-House lust. Perhaps >> he will be prompted to seek forgiveness from Piro, who, after all, is >> not much older than Khaavren was at that time. > > >I think the taboo is not sleeping across the tracks >but marrying/hybridizing across the tracks. I don't >recall anyone being shy about noting the former. > True, true. I entirely agree. But Khaavren was not merely in lust, but also apparantly in love, so he might understand Piro's *desire* to shack up with Ibronka. Yet I note that Khaavren does not even offer his son the possibility of merely being Ibronka's lover - he is too outraged to even think of suggesting that Piro and Ibronka give their feelings some time to vent, and perhaps cool down. Silly Khaavren. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 23 23:52:53 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 23:52:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <0C60209B-4E38-11D8-87A6-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <0C60209B-4E38-11D8-87A6-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > > I think the taboo is not sleeping across the tracks > > but marrying/hybridizing across the tracks. I don't > > recall anyone being shy about noting the former. > > > Don't we learn, in Teckla, when Vlad talks to Cheryl about her former > job as a prostitute, and Vlad mentions that to dragaereans, > prostitution and sex itself is viewed very differently. I'm not quite > sure how to articulate it, except that to dragaereans sex is entirely > separate from marriage. (Aside, please include the attribution - I remember that I wrote what you're responding to under the influence, and can hence blithely ignore it.) Note that at the time Vlad's knowledge of Dragaerans was more or less limited to criminals, users of criminal services, and a few probably wildly iconoclatsic nobles. Perhaps Aerich smiles on prostitution, perhaps Tazendra turned a few tricks in her youth - but I wouldn't count on it. > Of course, using a sort of contrary logic, if the taboo WERE for > sleeping across the tracks, how would a house of prostitution work in > the Organization? Would some of the "tags" be Jhereg, others Teckla, > etc., etc. This is a nice point but not it seems to me relevant given my above view. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sat Jan 24 00:10:38 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 00:10:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > On Fri, 23 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > >> [spoiler space for /Lord of Castle Black/ inserted again] > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Ah, yes. I see that I forgot to mention Tazendra and her desire > >> for a permanent union with Aerich. > > > >Not a desire exactly - she wouldn't act on it if she could, for > >example. > > Would she not? I think it would spoil her idea of Aerich. [snipped p.r.i.] > > > >> It occurs to me that in /Sethra Lavode/, Khaavren may well see Illista > >> for the first time in 700 years or so, recalling to him, no doubt to > >> his great embarrassment, his own youthful cross-House lust. Perhaps > >> he will be prompted to seek forgiveness from Piro, who, after all, is > >> not much older than Khaavren was at that time. > > > > > >I think the taboo is not sleeping across the tracks > >but marrying/hybridizing across the tracks. I don't > >recall anyone being shy about noting the former. > > > > True, true. I entirely agree. But Khaavren was not merely in lust, > but also apparantly in love, so he might understand Piro's *desire* to > shack up with Ibronka. Khaavren was in lust. Anything more I attribute to Paarfi's need to sell copies. He's 18, away from home for the first time, he spends a few hours chatting with a sexy older woman and bam, he's in lust. > Yet I note that Khaavren does not even offer his son the possibility > of merely being Ibronka's lover - he is too outraged to even think of > suggesting that Piro and Ibronka give their feelings some time to > vent, and perhaps cool down. Silly Khaavren. When Khaavren was in lust with Illista, he nearly ended up getting talked into letting his friends die. However, perhaps he could have suggested to the Dzur heir that she wasn't suitable to marry his son, but if she wanted to boink him for a while the back room near the kitchen had an old sofa. Presumably these things are understood, especially among the noblility. Actually, why aren't Piro and Ibronka doing it? Doesn't Paarfi have books to sell? And a big teen audience? D'Artagnan gets plenty of action... Note also that Khaavren is busy trying to reconstruct the Empire and establish the Empress in his home town, and is generally a hardass. Piro's a bit timing-impaired, wouldn't you say? From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Sat Jan 24 08:35:24 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 08:35:24 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <0C60209B-4E38-11D8-87A6-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040124163524.GA13117@ofb.net> On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 11:52:53PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > > prostitution and sex itself is viewed very differently. I'm not quite > > sure how to articulate it, except that to dragaereans sex is entirely > > separate from marriage. > Note that at the time Vlad's knowledge of Dragaerans was more or less > limited to criminals, users of criminal services, and a few probably > wildly iconoclatsic nobles. Perhaps Aerich smiles on prostitution, On the other hand, he might know if his tags seemed to have guilt or shame, and probably would know if the Jhereg around him viewed the tags with contempt; he could at least observe a difference between Jhereg attitudes and criminal human attitudes. And Paarfi has shown many inter-House dalliances without comment. And the Dragaerans have good birth control, even if not through the means Vlad thinks, and think nothing of having women in the same roles as men, from low-level combat to high command. In fact the one place we've seen sex discrimination in the Empire is in the Jhereg, where the Left Hand is female and the Organization mostly male. Birth control, observable sexual equality, and quite possibly a lack of sexual size dimorphism (no textev either way, AFAIK) would lead us to expect a different view of sex than among humans. So on this issue I'll trust Vlad until shown otherwise. -xx- Damien X-) From Gaertk at aol.com Sat Jan 24 13:52:27 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 16:52:27 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <600D72AD.157B1ECA.00048EA6@aol.com> Damien Sullivan writes: > and quite possibly a lack of sexual size dimorphism (no > textev either way, AFAIK) I'm pretty sure Dragaeran women are proportionately shorter than men, though still taller than Easterner men. Can't remember where I read it though. --KG From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sat Jan 24 14:17:12 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 14:17:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <600D72AD.157B1ECA.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <600D72AD.157B1ECA.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > Damien Sullivan writes: > > > and quite possibly a lack of sexual size dimorphism (no > > textev either way, AFAIK) > > I'm pretty sure Dragaeran women are proportionately shorter > than men, though still taller than Easterner men. Can't > remember where I read it though. Fwiw (aka zilch) I've wondered about this for a few years without coming across evidence either way. Except that armies seem to be evenly mixed in gender, and I suspect that strength/size are sufficiently important in swordfighting that there can be very little sexual dimorphism (which is what I would pararectally expect for an artificially evolved species). In case someone hasn't mentioned it, differences in size between male and female members of species is apparently strongly inversely related to the degree of monogamousness (monogamosity?). From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sat Jan 24 14:28:35 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 14:28:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040124163524.GA13117@ofb.net> References: <0C60209B-4E38-11D8-87A6-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <20040124163524.GA13117@ofb.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 24 Jan 2004, Damien Sullivan wrote: > On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 11:52:53PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > > > > prostitution and sex itself is viewed very differently. I'm not quite > > > sure how to articulate it, except that to dragaereans sex is entirely > > > separate from marriage. > > > Note that at the time Vlad's knowledge of Dragaerans was more or less > > limited to criminals, users of criminal services, and a few probably > > wildly iconoclatsic nobles. Perhaps Aerich smiles on prostitution, > > On the other hand, he might know if his tags seemed to have guilt or shame, > and probably would know if the Jhereg around him viewed the tags with > contempt; he could at least observe a difference between Jhereg attitudes and > criminal human attitudes. Is Vlad familiar with criminal Easterners? Also note that Vlad personally perceives a stigma - he has a lot of Eastern mores. I imagine there is rather less of a stigma for Dragaerans, given their better handle on disease and pregnancy. Vlad might not be able to easily distinguish between a weaker stigma and none. Also note that my guess is that most of the people involved are Teckla or Jhereg (on both sides) - it seems to me less than likely that a noble would frequent or work in Vlad's Massage Parlor - so which "society" one refers, the ruling class or the majority, might be important (see my ref to iconoclastic Dragons above). > And Paarfi has shown many inter-House dalliances without comment. > > And the Dragaerans have good birth control, even if not through the means Vlad > thinks, and think nothing of having women in the same roles as men, from > low-level combat to high command. In fact the one place we've seen sex > discrimination in the Empire is in the Jhereg, where the Left Hand is female > and the Organization mostly male. > > Birth control, observable sexual equality, and quite possibly a lack of sexual > size dimorphism (no textev either way, AFAIK) would lead us to expect a > different view of sex than among humans. So on this issue I'll trust Vlad > until shown otherwise. Note on the other hand that there are in fact some differences in Tortaalik's time - someone notes in _TPG_ that noblemen can't beat servants but noblewomen can. And certainly men are portrayed in active roles in romance much more than v.v. in that work. From bonham15 at cox.net Sat Jan 24 14:29:57 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 16:29:57 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex References: <600D72AD.157B1ECA.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <000401c3e2c9$991749d0$33856044@user79dn2jmjai> any comments i've seen on aliera's height have referred to her as being 'short for a dragaerian' not short for a dragaerian female. other than that i've got nothing off the top of my head. but then i've only seen vlad referring to a very few male dragaerians as having 'muscles you can actually see'. andy > > > > > and quite possibly a lack of sexual size dimorphism (no > > > textev either way, AFAIK) > > > > I'm pretty sure Dragaeran women are proportionately shorter > > than men, though still taller than Easterner men. Can't > > remember where I read it though. > > Fwiw (aka zilch) I've wondered about this for a few years without > coming across evidence either way. Except that armies seem to be > evenly mixed in gender, and I suspect that strength/size are sufficiently > important in swordfighting that there can be very little sexual dimorphism > (which is what I would pararectally expect for an artificially evolved > species). > > In case someone hasn't mentioned it, differences in size between male and > female members of species is apparently strongly inversely related to the > degree of monogamousness (monogamosity?). From mklahn at mac.com Sun Jan 25 09:19:36 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 11:19:36 -0600 Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jan 23, 2004, at 13:29 , Mark A Mandel wrote: > > Now, hold on there. I don't think being sent over Deathsgate Falls has > anything to do with the possibility of being reincarnated; it's an > honor > they give some of the dead. Have you got textev? Ummmmm. Nope, I don't. I guess I was making a bad assumption about what happens to a soul if it doesn't go over Deathsgate. I don't really know what gave me that impression, but you're right: I have no direct reference to a soul being destroyed if the body doesn't go over Deathsgate. So, what happens to it? I guess we'll have to ask the Necromancer... :) -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From jtrager at keyway.net Sun Jan 25 09:34:43 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (Trager) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 09:34:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kelly's Movement Message-ID: <200401251734.i0PHYhIq018585@shrek.keyway.net> I would assume instead that the soul goes into some kind of limbo. We do know that Dragaerans (and humans) reincarnate and I always got the impression that that was the default behavior. Going to Deathsgate gives you a place to stay if you don't wanna reincarnate. How likely is it that Dolivar was sent over Deathsgate Falls? I assume he wasn't, so Vlad's history kind of backs up my assumption. > > On Jan 23, 2004, at 13:29 , Mark A Mandel wrote: > > > > Now, hold on there. I don't think being sent over Deathsgate Falls has > > anything to do with the possibility of being reincarnated; it's an > > honor > > they give some of the dead. Have you got textev? > > Ummmmm. Nope, I don't. I guess I was making a bad assumption about what > happens to a soul if it doesn't go over Deathsgate. I don't really know > what gave me that impression, but you're right: I have no direct > reference to a soul being destroyed if the body doesn't go over > Deathsgate. So, what happens to it? I guess we'll have to ask the > Necromancer... :) > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > > From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Sun Jan 25 18:35:32 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 18:35:32 -0800 Subject: Kelly's Movement References: <400F253F.2030708@insaneninjahero.com> <20040122131709.GB37905@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <002c01c3e3b5$122c8880$6701a8c0@DELL1> I was rereading Yendi again and on pg133-134 (at least of my copy) Vlad comments that the Jhereg will hardly ever "work" on anyone who isn't Jhereg unless someone is threatening to go to the Empire or it's done as a special favor, set up by a Jhereg for a friend of another House. Akodo Bob > Re Vlad killing Jhereg vs non-Jhereg -- I don't have the textref in > front of me, but my memory says that Vlad only turns down work for > three reasons: > > Person whim > Risk not worth reward > He doesn't do Easterners > > Everybody else is fair game, including gods and demons. > > Mind you, Vlad *does* get a lot more work killing Jheregs than, say, > Dragons. But that's because assasination is a cultural thing in the > Jhereg, not because Vlad has a preference for killing Jhereg. From zarkon at illrepute.org Mon Jan 26 14:05:26 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:05:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Kelly's Movement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 25 Jan 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: @> > Now, hold on there. I don't think being sent over Deathsgate Falls has @> > anything to do with the possibility of being reincarnated; it's an @> > honor @> > they give some of the dead. Have you got textev? @> @> Ummmmm. Nope, I don't. I guess I was making a bad assumption about what @> happens to a soul if it doesn't go over Deathsgate. I don't really know @> what gave me that impression, but you're right: I have no direct @> reference to a soul being destroyed if the body doesn't go over @> Deathsgate. So, what happens to it? I guess we'll have to ask the @> Necromancer... :) This may be pararectal, but I recall a line from Vlad to the effect that people will reincarnate if not sent over Deathsgate, but if sent over Deathsgate may either stay in the land of the dead or reincarnate depending on whether they get stuck in the Paths, the whim of the gods, etc. Of course, I'm not sure that what Vlad says is even worthwile as evidence when it comes to something this abstract. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 26 14:16:05 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:16:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: clue re Kragar? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't recall seeing the following discussed here: On pg 34 of _Dragon_, as Vlad and Kragar are going to check out Barrit's Morganti collection, Loiosh tells V they're being watched. K then does the same. It sounds like V didn't notice, so one wonders what K has that V doesn't - presumably some psychic skills. It has been argued here that K sought out Daymar in order to learn how to alleviate his standing-out problem - this might be further evidence. From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Mon Jan 26 14:28:03 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:28:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040126222803.45339.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Silberstein wrote: > > [On the original subject of Dzur and cross-House shenanigans] > > On Fri, 16 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > >I would however like to reiterate my Yendis-sleep-around-a-lot theory, > >accounting for both their lack of House features and their low status. > > Yendi have low status? Well, they have reputations for being > deceptive, which is not entirely the same thing. Paresh doesn't list them among the real aristocracy in _Teckla_, and they're not called Yendilords. That gave me an impression of lower status than Dragons etc. If so, the SiG might be an exception. > >Re the spoiler below, I'm sticking with my they're-gay theory for now. > > I tend to doubt it, but perhaps we shall see. > > >Also re the spoiler, see _TLoCB_, top of page 234. > > > > [spoiler space for /Lord of Castle Black/ inserted again] Thanks. I'll probably get it when it comes out in paperback. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From mneme at io.com Mon Jan 26 14:30:34 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:30:34 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040126222803.45339.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040126222803.45339.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <16405.38154.346042.713177@fnord.io.com> Jerry Friedman writes: > >--- David Silberstein wrote: >> Yendi have low status? Well, they have reputations for being >> deceptive, which is not entirely the same thing. >Paresh doesn't list them among the real aristocracy in _Teckla_, >and they're not called Yendilords. That gave me an impression of >lower status than Dragons etc. If so, the SiG might be an exception. The Pel / Aramis connection might give one the impression that they're a Fourth Estate, in a way, anyways. Which would give them equal status to nobles, but different. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Mon Jan 26 14:34:39 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:34:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040126223439.45984.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > > Damien Sullivan writes: > > > > > and quite possibly a lack of sexual size dimorphism (no > > > textev either way, AFAIK) > > > > I'm pretty sure Dragaeran women are proportionately shorter > > than men, though still taller than Easterner men. Can't > > remember where I read it though. > > Fwiw (aka zilch) I've wondered about this for a few years without > coming across evidence either way. Except that armies seem to be > evenly mixed in gender, and I suspect that strength/size are > sufficiently > important in swordfighting that there can be very little sexual > dimorphism Are armies evenly mixed? Every time I check, it seems there are a *few* more men than women in the army and the Phoenix Guards. But I haven't kept track, so maybe I'm just seeing what I expect to see. The one I'm sure about is _Orca_, where there are three male cops and one female. But that's not much of a sample. Well, also in _Phoenix_, when six (?) goldcloaks attacked Noish-pa, only one was female. > (which is what I would pararectally expect for an artificially evolved > species). > > In case someone hasn't mentioned it, differences in size between male > and > female members of species is apparently strongly inversely related to > the > degree of monogamousness (monogamosity?). Monogamy? Among birds, this is a strong relation but not a universal one. In birds of prey, females are bigger than males--very noticeably, in falcons and bird-eating hawks--but they're monogamous. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 26 14:57:29 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 14:57:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040126223439.45984.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040126223439.45984.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > > --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > (which is what I would pararectally expect for an artificially evolved > > species). > > > > In case someone hasn't mentioned it, differences in size between male > > and female members of species is apparently strongly inversely related > > to the degree of monogamousness (monogamosity?). > > Monogamy? > > Among birds, this is a strong relation but not a universal one. > In birds of prey, females are bigger than males--very noticeably, in > falcons and bird-eating hawks--but they're monogamous. Fascinating - is there an evolutionary just-so-story? Hmm, birds have xx males and xy females, right? Also I guess one should distinguish between monogamy, pair-bonded-for-life, and not-sleeping-around-at-all. I vaguely thought that some p-b-f-l birds turn out to have a surprising degree of adultery. In fact I thought p-b-f-l actually had turned out to be really rare, even in birds, except for albatrosses or something, so ignore me. Anyway, it should be noted that jhereg (and maybe orca?) are dimorphic in the hawk mode. SKZB is really on top of his universe. From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Mon Jan 26 15:39:05 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 15:39:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040126233905.48726.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > > > > > --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > > > (which is what I would pararectally expect for an artificially > evolved > > > species). > > > > > > In case someone hasn't mentioned it, differences in size between > male > > > and female members of species is apparently strongly inversely > related > > > to the degree of monogamousness (monogamosity?). > > > > Monogamy? > > > > Among birds, this is a strong relation but not a universal one. > > In birds of prey, females are bigger than males--very noticeably, in > > falcons and bird-eating hawks--but they're monogamous. > > Fascinating - is there an evolutionary just-so-story? >From popularizations and maybe out of date--the size difference is so males and females don't compete with each other for prey. Last I heard, no one knew why females should be the bigger sex in both raptors and owls. > Hmm, birds have xx > males and xy females, right? Right, though when the female has the small chromosome it's called a w. > Also I guess one should distinguish between monogamy, > pair-bonded-for-life, and not-sleeping-around-at-all. I vaguely thought > that some p-b-f-l birds turn out to have a surprising degree of > adultery. > In fact I thought p-b-f-l actually had turned out to be really rare, > even > in birds, except for albatrosses or something, so ignore me. I think raptors are monogamous for a year, but not for life. Recommended reading, even for people who aren't bird geeks: _Red-Tails in Love_, by Marie Winn. > Anyway, it should be noted that jhereg (and maybe orca?) are dimorphic > in > the hawk mode. SKZB is really on top of his universe. Though it should also be noted that the sex differences are smallest in scavengers. On the other hand, the most intelligent birds are often said to be ravens, which are roughly jhereg-sized opportunists and scavengers. So maybe packing human-like intelligence into a brain the size of a rednut wasn't *just* a cruel joke. (Recommended reading: _Mind of the Raven_, by Bernd Heinrich. Very heartwarming, like _Red-Tails in Love_. There are noticeable similarities between raven and jhereg "person"alities.) Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Mon Jan 26 15:40:26 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 15:40:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <16405.38154.346042.713177@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <20040126234026.54618.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> --- Joshua Kronengold wrote: > Jerry Friedman writes: > > > >--- David Silberstein wrote: > >> Yendi have low status? Well, they have reputations for being > >> deceptive, which is not entirely the same thing. > >Paresh doesn't list them among the real aristocracy in _Teckla_, > >and they're not called Yendilords. That gave me an impression of > >lower status than Dragons etc. If so, the SiG might be an exception. > > The Pel / Aramis connection might give one the impression that they're > a Fourth Estate, in a way, anyways. > > Which would give them equal status to nobles, but different. I bounced off _The Three Musketeers_. What was Aramis's status? Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 26 15:45:00 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 15:45:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040126233905.48726.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040126233905.48726.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: [interesting info snipped] > > --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > Anyway, it should be noted that jhereg (and maybe orca?) are dimorphic > > in the hawk mode. SKZB is really on top of his universe. > > Though it should also be noted that the sex differences are smallest > in scavengers. Oops, yeah - though in my defense we see Loiosh and Rocza doing a lot more hunting (well, a few times) than we see them eating garbage (once that I recall - L recommends a restaurant on this basis). Perhaps this is in part in order to feed Vlad when he's hurt or lazy... From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 26 15:50:04 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 15:50:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <20040126233905.48726.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Question to biologists - is it usual for a scavenger to be poisonous? Are there even any examples? I thought that was a feature of predators. Maybe the scavenger bit is more a sideline that Vlad emphasizes for ribbing. From jalipaz at stanford.edu Mon Jan 26 15:54:51 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 15:54:51 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040126233905.48726.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040126233905.48726.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: >--- Philip Hart wrote: >> >> >> On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: >> >> > >> > --- Philip Hart wrote: >> > >> > > (which is what I would pararectally expect for an artificially >> evolved >> > > species). >> > > >> > > In case someone hasn't mentioned it, differences in size between >> male >> > > and female members of species is apparently strongly inversely >> related >> > > to the degree of monogamousness (monogamosity?). >> > >> > Monogamy? >> > >> > Among birds, this is a strong relation but not a universal one. >> > In birds of prey, females are bigger than males--very noticeably, in >> > falcons and bird-eating hawks--but they're monogamous. >> >> Fascinating - is there an evolutionary just-so-story? > >From popularizations and maybe out of date--the size difference is >so males and females don't compete with each other for prey. Last >I heard, no one knew why females should be the bigger sex in both >raptors and owls. > there are two schools of thought 1) females are the bigger because of reproductive issues. They must feed a brood--take bigger prey, they must incubate the clutch--bigger = more body heat. that said, they also believe 2) that it is a historical artifact of early avian divergence. But the first theory gets more respect. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 26 16:02:55 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:02:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <20040126233905.48726.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: > there are two schools of thought 1) females are the bigger because of > reproductive issues. They must feed a brood--take bigger prey, they > must incubate the clutch--bigger = more body heat. that said, they > also believe 2) that it is a historical artifact of early avian > divergence. But the first theory gets more respect. I'm trying to understand why 1) wouldn't apply more generally in predators. Would this mean female raptors are scraping at the upper range of useful size, and male raptors are less likely to starve or break wings or graze trees by accident or something? I guess birds have a more difficult design job than say cats... I think Loiosh says Rocza is a better flier since she's bigger... From jalipaz at stanford.edu Mon Jan 26 16:43:33 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:43:33 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: >On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: > >> there are two schools of thought 1) females are the bigger because of >> reproductive issues. They must feed a brood--take bigger prey, they >> must incubate the clutch--bigger = more body heat. that said, they >> also believe 2) that it is a historical artifact of early avian >> divergence. But the first theory gets more respect. > >I'm trying to understand why 1) wouldn't apply more generally in >predators. The reason why number 2 is still discussed at all is because we cannot explain why the female male raptor size difference is not more general--so number two suggests that female large size is costly and therefore eliminated. That said, i am sufficiently unfamiliar with the literature that i actually went to and looked in my book on sexual selection--there is a whole chapter on reverse sexual size dimorphism (RSSD): First RSSD is not limited to birds: marine mammals--some seals; those that are monogamous tend to have RSSD, this is thought to be because females need more fat stores to successfully birth and raise a pup--males have no need to be large as they do not have to compete for mates, protect a harem and or compete for territory. Also true for seals that do not aggregate at breeding beaches for many of the same reasons. In the Wendell seals, they believe that because mating is underwater and because males are judged on agility selection may favor smaller males. Other possible reasons: females are selected for extreme fatness, or that males on average are younger, as females survive better. Males tend to be larger in polygamous situations, situations where there are contests for mates, violent mating and agility displays. Other examples of RSSD: lizards, turtles (the norm here, 31 out of 32 species) mustelids, insects and baleen whales show RSSD; jacanas (another bird) In deep-sea fishes many males have been reduced to being almost parasitic on females; they attach themselves to a female, going so far as to tap into her digestive tract, so the female actually feeds them. The only thing the female needs from the male is sperm--they are called parasite males--and possibly evolved due to the above competition issue. Lastly females are often believed to be larger because then they can lay more eggs (birds, fishes, and insects) or the young they do birth can be larger and therefore have a better chance of surviving. All that said, the chapter ends by saying that there is no consensus of opinion. > >Would this mean female raptors are scraping at the upper range of >useful size, and male raptors are less likely to starve or break >wings or graze trees by accident or something? I guess birds have >a more difficult design job than say cats... no idea From jalipaz at stanford.edu Mon Jan 26 16:44:02 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 16:44:02 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: >Question to biologists - is it usual for a scavenger to be poisonous? Are >there even any examples? I thought that was a feature of predators. Maybe >the scavenger bit is more a sideline that Vlad emphasizes for ribbing. There are only two examples I can think of: the Komodo dragon and related lizards (monitors and the like)--and a single bird who's name escapes me. of course dragons and monitor lizards aren't actually poisonous--there teeth just harbor a dizzying array of bacteria--so much so that a bite from either is frequently fatal, even though the wound itself is very minor. Victims die of sepsis. I worked with monitors, and the list of vaccinations needed if your were bitten was upwards of 27. Evolutionarily speaking, there is no reason for a scavenger to be poisonous, as there food is already dead. -- Department of Biological Sciences Palumbi Lab Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University Blinks Oceanview Blvd Pacific Grove, Ca 93950 jalipaz at stanford.edu phone: 831-655-6210 Often statistics are used as drunken men use lampposts... for support rather than illumination. Albert Einstein From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Mon Jan 26 17:58:18 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 17:58:18 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex References: Message-ID: <001301c3e479$09132050$6701a8c0@DELL1> > >Question to biologists - is it usual for a scavenger to be poisonous? Are > >there even any examples? I thought that was a feature of predators. Maybe > >the scavenger bit is more a sideline that Vlad emphasizes for ribbing. > > > > There are only two examples I can think of: the Komodo dragon and > related lizards (monitors and the like)--and a single bird who's name > escapes me. > > > of course dragons and monitor lizards aren't actually > poisonous--there teeth just harbor a dizzying array of bacteria--so > much so that a bite from either is frequently fatal, even though the > wound itself is very minor. Victims die of sepsis. I worked with > monitors, and the list of vaccinations needed if your were bitten was > upwards of 27. > > > Evolutionarily speaking, there is no reason for a scavenger to be > poisonous, as there food is already dead. > What about for defensive purposes as well as competion for food? Not being a biologist of any sort, it still seems to me that an animal who can poison other animals has a powerful defense mechanism, and in addition, being able to drive off other perhaps larger scavangers would allow the animal to have a better supply of food. Akodo Bob -who is not a scientist so is probally talking out of his own rear end. From jalipaz at stanford.edu Mon Jan 26 18:01:12 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:01:12 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <001301c3e479$09132050$6701a8c0@DELL1> References: <001301c3e479$09132050$6701a8c0@DELL1> Message-ID: > > > >> Evolutionarily speaking, there is no reason for a scavenger to be >> poisonous, as there food is already dead. >> > >What about for defensive purposes as well as competion for food? Not being >a biologist of any sort, it still seems to me that an animal who can poison >other animals has a powerful defense mechanism, and in addition, being able >to drive off other perhaps larger scavangers would allow the animal to have >a better supply of food. > most of these lizards invoke so much fear in everything around them that nothing preys on them, including humans. komodo dragons appear to be immune to each others bite--so competition is not an issue, and on the island of komodo, there is nothing bigger--they are by the way the largest lizard in the world. jaa From warbi at warbi.net Mon Jan 26 20:05:12 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 20:05:12 -0800 Subject: Venemous Scavengers Message-ID: <003d01c3e48a$c3e52520$3dadfea9@warbi> Gila monsters and mexican beaded lizards are a good example. They are more scavengers than predators. warbi From jalipaz at stanford.edu Mon Jan 26 18:21:26 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:21:26 -0800 Subject: Venemous Scavengers In-Reply-To: <003d01c3e48a$c3e52520$3dadfea9@warbi> References: <003d01c3e48a$c3e52520$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: > yeah their a good example > Gila monsters and mexican beaded lizards are a good example. They are >more scavengers than predators. warbi -- Department of Biological Sciences Palumbi Lab Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University Blinks Oceanview Blvd Pacific Grove, Ca 93950 jalipaz at stanford.edu phone: 831-655-6210 Often statistics are used as drunken men use lampposts... for support rather than illumination. Albert Einstein From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 26 18:22:06 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:22:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Venemous Scavengers In-Reply-To: <003d01c3e48a$c3e52520$3dadfea9@warbi> References: <003d01c3e48a$c3e52520$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, warbi wrote: > Gila monsters and mexican beaded lizards are a good example. They are > more scavengers than predators. warbi http://www.biopark.org/lizards.html says that Gila monsters spend 98% of their lives asleep. Check out the bunny btw (the Gila "is a predatory scavenger specializing in the eggs and helpless young of reptiles, birds, and small mammals." - i.e., "we eat the helpless" for Angel fans). Interesting that there are plenty of poisonous snakes but only two lizards... From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Mon Jan 26 18:59:20 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 18:59:20 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040127025920.GA17814@ofb.net> On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 04:43:33PM -0800, Julie Alipaz wrote: > First RSSD is not limited to birds: marine mammals--some Hyenas too, I thought. Bigger and more aggressive (more testosterone) than the males. (Why aren't they male themselves? Because they have even more estrogen.) > Other examples of RSSD: lizards, turtles (the norm here, 31 out of 32 > species) mustelids, insects and baleen whales show RSSD; jacanas > (another bird) And spiders. > parasitic on females; they attach themselves to a female, going so > far as to tap into her digestive tract, so the female actually feeds > them. The only thing the female needs from the male is sperm--they > are called parasite males--and possibly evolved due to the above > competition issue. I think sperm in general are parasite gametes in the sexual process; some thought is that the original sexual gametes would have been 'fair', or equal in size, but it makes sense for one half to cheat and make lots of smaller gametes and off the race goes. The same logic should probably apply to actual males, except when offset by competition-for-mating issues, which turns out to be pretty often. -xx- Damien X-) From greyw01f at hotmail.com Mon Jan 26 18:53:38 2004 From: greyw01f at hotmail.com (Jon Carey) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 02:53:38 +0000 Subject: Venemous Scavengers Message-ID: Jhereg are not only scavengers. They *will* hunt if they have to. However, they tend to be, from the two lazy ones that we're acquainted with, a little reluctant to do so if they can get food by other means. Their poison affects the neurology of a target--one target who got a lot of juice in, I think, _Orca_ was standing around, dazed. If it was a muscle poison he would have been trembling, shaking, or downright seizuring, unless the poison contracts the muscles at which point the victim would be one tense bundle of organic matter. Regardless--this poison type is consistent with both a scavenger and a predator--in either case, it is not defensive in nature (though it can be used in such a fashion) but it is designed to render the target less defensive, possibly immobile their target. It is thus easier to kill and then devour. Or so my limited understanding of poisons in nature goes. Jon _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Jan 26 19:06:59 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 19:06:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040127025920.GA17814@ofb.net> References: <20040127025920.GA17814@ofb.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Damien Sullivan wrote: > I think sperm in general are parasite gametes in the sexual process; > some thought is that the original sexual gametes would have been 'fair', > or equal in size, but it makes sense for one half to cheat and make lots > of smaller gametes and off the race goes. The same logic should > probably apply to actual males, except when offset by > competition-for-mating issues, which turns out to be pretty often. The argument in Matt Ridley's _The Red Queen_ has it that sperm are small because of selfish gene effects between the X and Y chromosome and the female mitochondria genes fighting for dominance or something - and maybe something having to do with parasitism. Maybe time for a reread. From eshivak at netzero.net Tue Jan 27 05:09:39 2004 From: eshivak at netzero.net (Eric Shivak) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:09:39 -0500 Subject: OT: New Worm Spreading - Virus Warning In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0HS5005KXGK5QN@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Hey all, I woke up this morning and was mass mail bombed by a variety of people with the W32.Novarg.A at mm worm. Follow the bouncing link for more information and clean up. http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.novarg.a at mm.html Thanks! Eric Shivak SDD Computer Support Services 631-269-5295 support at sddcomputersupport.com www.sddcomputersupport.com From warlord at dragon.com Tue Jan 27 08:53:19 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 11:53:19 -0500 Subject: Venemous Scavengers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >Question to biologists - is it usual for a scavenger to be poisonous? Are >there even any examples? I thought that was a feature of predators. Maybe >the scavenger bit is more a sideline that Vlad emphasizes for ribbing. Spammers W From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Tue Jan 27 12:08:55 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:08:55 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <20040127025920.GA17814@ofb.net> Message-ID: <20040127200855.GA18531@ofb.net> On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 07:06:59PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > > I think sperm in general are parasite gametes in the sexual process; > > some thought is that the original sexual gametes would have been 'fair', > > or equal in size, but it makes sense for one half to cheat and make lots > > of smaller gametes and off the race goes. The same logic should > > probably apply to actual males, except when offset by > > competition-for-mating issues, which turns out to be pretty often. > > The argument in Matt Ridley's _The Red Queen_ has it that sperm are small > because of selfish gene effects between the X and Y chromosome and the > female mitochondria genes fighting for dominance or something - and maybe > something having to do with parasitism. Maybe time for a reread. I should be clear: I didn't mean that sperm came from some external parasite, just that they're being selfish, putting most of the work of reproduction onto the egg. I think there's reason for the sex-determining chromosome (Y in humans) to be selfish and small. However, that isn't linked to males -- in birds females are XW and males are XX. -xx- Damien X-) From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Jan 27 13:10:10 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 13:10:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040127200855.GA18531@ofb.net> References: <20040127025920.GA17814@ofb.net> <20040127200855.GA18531@ofb.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, Damien Sullivan wrote: > On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 07:06:59PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > > > > I think sperm in general are parasite gametes in the sexual process; > > > some thought is that the original sexual gametes would have been 'fair', > > > or equal in size, but it makes sense for one half to cheat and make lots > > > of smaller gametes and off the race goes. The same logic should > > > probably apply to actual males, except when offset by > > > competition-for-mating issues, which turns out to be pretty often. > > > > The argument in Matt Ridley's _The Red Queen_ has it that sperm are small > > because of selfish gene effects between the X and Y chromosome and the > > female mitochondria genes fighting for dominance or something - and maybe > > something having to do with parasitism. Maybe time for a reread. > > I should be clear: I didn't mean that sperm came from some external > parasite, just that they're being selfish, putting most of the work of > reproduction onto the egg. Ok, if anyone cares about this they can check out the chapter "Genetic Mutiny and Gender" in Ridley's _The Red Queen_, which is where I got the latter two points (the first being either pararectal or related to the 2nd point) - sperm have their organelles stripped (so they don't fight with the egg organelles) and their cytoplasm siphoned off (in order to get rid of cellular parasites). He's a really excellent (if a tad political) science writer I recommend to everybody. Dawkins's _The Selfish Gene_ touches on these points but I find it a lot harder to follow. Sperm competition is also important (depending on the species). Ridley says we make "kamikaze sperm" which may act to impede rivals' sperm... From zarkon at illrepute.org Tue Jan 27 13:48:06 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 16:48:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: You've gotta know when to... uh... do that thing Message-ID: We just got cable recently, and I discovered that there is a thing on Bravo called "Celebrity Poker". Moreover, it appears to be similar[0] to the poker game that Steve favors. I know that fantasy authors are not considered famous enough to appear on shows like this, but does anyone else think it would be amusing to see Steve kick Ben Affleck's ass at poker? [0] Read: identical, except for the fact that it is "no limit", which I assume means that any amount may be bet on any hand, and that there are some extra-special rules to ensure that all of the chips are eventually given to one player (such as "nobody can leave the table until they run out of chips"). From feaelin at kemenel.org Tue Jan 27 13:58:07 2004 From: feaelin at kemenel.org (Iain E. Davis) Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 15:58:07 -0600 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: <200401222258.i0MMwCGu002852@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040127155530.01bcac10@kemenel.org> At 04:16 PM 1/23/2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Trager wrote: > >#That was how I'd always guessed it. ># >#Then again, Aliera might have decided in the PotD that Kieron was just >#really hot, so she took his sword to give her a pretext to see him >#again. For personal reasons, not the political ones we'd always >#assumed. > >Ahhh... weren't they brother and sister in Kieron's lifetime, along with >Vlad? That was certainly how *I* understood it. I'm not sure what the implications are, since Aliera is a _reincarnation_ of Kieron's sister (and likewise Vlad of Kieron's brother)... Presumably any blood relationship is very remote (unless Kieron "came back" by being reincarnated as someone related to Aliera), but still... From mam at theworld.com Wed Jan 28 12:46:08 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:46:08 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 24 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: #On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: #> I'm pretty sure Dragaeran women are proportionately shorter #> than men, though still taller than Easterner men. Can't #> remember where I read it though. # #Fwiw (aka zilch) I've wondered about this for a few years without #coming across evidence either way. When we're looking from Vlad's POV, all Dragaerans loom over him. He does make note of a few extremes -- Aliera is extremely short for a Dragaeran, and I remember some minor character as being extraordinarily tall. #In case someone hasn't mentioned it, differences in size between male and #female members of species is apparently strongly inversely related to the #degree of monogamousness (monogamosity?). Monogamy. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Wed Jan 28 12:55:59 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:55:59 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040126223439.45984.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: #Are armies evenly mixed? Every time I check, it seems there are a #*few* more men than women in the army and the Phoenix Guards. But #I haven't kept track, so maybe I'm just seeing what I expect to see. Somewhere ISTR picking up that the Phoenix Guard is about 1/3 women. I don't remember if it was textev, mail from Steve, or what, so don't regard this as at all authoritative till we have a citation. -- Mark M. From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Wed Jan 28 15:31:29 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:31:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <6.0.1.1.0.20040127155530.01bcac10@kemenel.org> Message-ID: <20040128233129.86373.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> --- "Iain E. Davis" wrote: > At 04:16 PM 1/23/2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > >On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Trager wrote: > > > >#That was how I'd always guessed it. > ># > >#Then again, Aliera might have decided in the PotD that Kieron was just > >#really hot, so she took his sword to give her a pretext to see him > >#again. For personal reasons, not the political ones we'd always > >#assumed. > > > >Ahhh... weren't they brother and sister in Kieron's lifetime, along > with > >Vlad? > > That was certainly how *I* understood it. I'm not sure what the > implications are, since Aliera is a _reincarnation_ of Kieron's sister > (and > likewise Vlad of Kieron's brother)... > > Presumably any blood relationship is very remote (unless Kieron "came > back" > by being reincarnated as someone related to Aliera), but still... "Aliera e'Kieron" means she's descended from him, right? So there is a blood relationship. No doubt very remote, as you say. By the way, since we're talking about female Dragaerans too, do Dragons ever inherit their "e'" surname from their mother? And will Steven ever record a Dragon's name so we can hear how that prefix is pronounced? (I suspect it's ee as in tree.) Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From jtrager at keyway.net Wed Jan 28 15:34:55 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (Trager) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:34:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <200401282334.i0SNYtIp054416@shrek.keyway.net> I always thought of it as something more like 'eh'. > --- "Iain E. Davis" wrote: > > At 04:16 PM 1/23/2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > >On Thu, 22 Jan 2004, Trager wrote: > > > > > >#That was how I'd always guessed it. > > ># > > >#Then again, Aliera might have decided in the PotD that Kieron was just > > >#really hot, so she took his sword to give her a pretext to see him > > >#again. For personal reasons, not the political ones we'd always > > >#assumed. > > > > > >Ahhh... weren't they brother and sister in Kieron's lifetime, along > > with > > >Vlad? > > > > That was certainly how *I* understood it. I'm not sure what the > > implications are, since Aliera is a _reincarnation_ of Kieron's sister > > (and > > likewise Vlad of Kieron's brother)... > > > > Presumably any blood relationship is very remote (unless Kieron "came > > back" > > by being reincarnated as someone related to Aliera), but still... > > "Aliera e'Kieron" means she's descended from him, right? So there > is a blood relationship. No doubt very remote, as you say. > > By the way, since we're talking about female Dragaerans too, do Dragons > ever inherit their "e'" surname from their mother? And will Steven > ever record a Dragon's name so we can hear how that prefix is > pronounced? (I suspect it's ee as in tree.) > > Jerry Friedman > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! > http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ > > From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Wed Jan 28 15:41:42 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 15:41:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040128234142.74863.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: > > > there are two schools of thought 1) females are the bigger because of > > reproductive issues. They must feed a brood--take bigger prey, they > > must incubate the clutch--bigger = more body heat. that said, they > > also believe 2) that it is a historical artifact of early avian > > divergence. But the first theory gets more respect. Thanks! > I'm trying to understand why 1) wouldn't apply more generally in > predators. Me too. > Would this mean female raptors are scraping at the upper range of > useful size, and male raptors are less likely to starve or break > wings or graze trees by accident or something? I guess birds have > a more difficult design job than say cats... I don't think so, because the smallest North American hawk, the sharp-shinned hawk (which a Dragaeran wouldn't even consider a hawk) has at least as much size dimorphism as the goshawk. > I think Loiosh says Rocza is a better flier since she's bigger... Funny, I've discussed this one on the Nabokov list too. There's a very rough trend that bigger birds fly slightly faster, but the fastest birds are swifts, which are pretty small. For stamina, there's really no correlation. To a first approximation, size doesn't matter. I doubt you heard it here first. Of course, we have no idea what sexual dimorphism is like in jhereg beyond the size difference. I don't think we even know what color they are. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From dr.elmo at whiterose.org Wed Jan 28 15:52:13 2004 From: dr.elmo at whiterose.org (Greg Morrow) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 17:52:13 -0600 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040128233129.86373.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> References: <6.0.1.1.0.20040127155530.01bcac10@kemenel.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040128174246.02224d50@mail.whiterose.org> Jerry Friedman wondered aloud to the group: >By the way, since we're talking about female Dragaerans too, do Dragons >ever inherit their "e'" surname from their mother? I suspect that when two Dragons agree to parent a child, there is an agreement made as to which line-name the child will bear. Some agreements will be morganatic, some patrilineal, some matrilineal, some whichever line-name is of higher prestige, some whichever line is more in need of an heir. Note that, apparently from Aliera's case, being half-god doesn't count as being a cross-breed, which is moderately interesting considering the general Dragaeran opinion of gods, which implies that cross-breeding with gods is OK because gods are powerful, not because gods are divine (or otherwise special). -- "There is no heroism in vanquishing a weakling or a fool." --Irwin R. Blacker mailto:Dr.Elmo at whiterose.org http://www.whiterose.org/dr.elmo/blog/ From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Jan 28 16:10:42 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 16:10:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040128234142.74863.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040128234142.74863.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > I don't think so, because the smallest North American hawk, the > sharp-shinned hawk (which a Dragaeran wouldn't even consider a hawk) > has at least as much size dimorphism as the goshawk. Uhh, do they really have sharp shins? > Funny, I've discussed this one on the Nabokov list too. There's > a very rough trend that bigger birds fly slightly faster, but the > fastest birds are swifts, which are pretty small. For stamina, > there's really no correlation. To a first approximation, size > doesn't matter. I doubt you heard it here first. Huh, heard the opposite last night... Ok, anyway, jhereg are intelligent. Somehow that has to majorly affect their evolution. I'm thinking questions about their dimorphism and venomousness/eating habits can't be simply related to familiar animal models. Actually I'm thinking they should probably be either smarter or dumber than the J made them, and should have grown a great deal on an intelligently-harvested diet, and should be a leading species, assuming the Dragaerans haven't launched a program to eliminate them (e.g. by destroying their habitat or developing the Overcast). From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Wed Jan 28 19:31:18 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:31:18 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> So, I was rereading the Amber series the other day, and I noticed that Corwin's sword's name is Grayswandir. "Blackwand!" flashed across my brain, and I began to make other demented connections, such as TALL, dresses in BLACK AND SILVER, and IS A BADASS SORCERER AND SWORDSMAN.??Morrolan e'Drien does not, as far as we know, have an annoying son who hangs out with an annoying nephew and invents annoying computers, but he DOES hang out with Verra, a Chaotic sort if ever there was one, although I am not sure Verra is in any way descended from Khaavren, who is of course the Dragaeran version of Benedict.??(... Khaavren may well be more glompable than Benedict, but I cannot swear to this.) I wish I could do better for Aliera than Fiona, which would make Mario Julian, which cracks me up, but I just can't.??If she were, say, Deirdre, this would be Wrong, Inaccurate, and Ridiculous. I bet that makes Daymar Brand, only Daymar doesn't want to rub anyone's nose in anything, and I'm not sure that he's ever tried to kill an illegitimate nephew.??(Do those exist???Or is illegitimacy only reserved for children???No, they exist.?? Phew.) Anyway, what I think I'm trying to say is, I need someone to smack me and tell me "NO STOP THIS IS WRONG AND SILLY," and where better to find this than on the Dragaera List? =AC MJ PS??I bet people get Dworkin and Barritt confused all the time. From agrajag at dragaera.net Wed Jan 28 19:57:08 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: 28 Jan 2004 22:57:08 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <1075348627.2558.2.camel@loiosh> On Wed, 2004-01-28 at 22:31, M J wrote: > So, I was rereading the Amber series the other day, and I > noticed that Corwin's sword's name is Grayswandir. > > "Blackwand!" flashed across my brain, and I began to make > other demented connections, such as TALL, dresses in BLACK AND > SILVER, and IS A BADASS SORCERER AND SWORDSMAN. Morrolan > e'Drien does not, as far as we know, have an annoying son who > hangs out with an annoying nephew Hm.. well he does have a nephew, err... niece :) And don't forget, Steven was friends with Zelazney. And I've often heard it said that when Sethra Lavode took Sethra the Younger to a plane where time was a different speed, Steve was actually making Dragaera one of the shadow worlds of Amber. > I bet that makes Daymar Brand Brand plushie? :) From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Jan 28 20:05:44 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:05:44 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040128234142.74863.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040128234142.74863.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6979EE8C-5210-11D8-A4F4-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Doesn't this all get back to the English vs the African Swallow? On Jan 28, 2004, at 6:41 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote: > > --- Philip Hart wrote: >> >> >> On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: >> >>> there are two schools of thought 1) females are the bigger because of >>> reproductive issues. They must feed a brood--take bigger prey, they >>> must incubate the clutch--bigger = more body heat. that said, they >>> also believe 2) that it is a historical artifact of early avian >>> divergence. But the first theory gets more respect. > > Thanks! > >> I'm trying to understand why 1) wouldn't apply more generally in >> predators. > > Me too. > >> Would this mean female raptors are scraping at the upper range of >> useful size, and male raptors are less likely to starve or break >> wings or graze trees by accident or something? I guess birds have >> a more difficult design job than say cats... > > I don't think so, because the smallest North American hawk, the > sharp-shinned hawk (which a Dragaeran wouldn't even consider a hawk) > has at least as much size dimorphism as the goshawk. > >> I think Loiosh says Rocza is a better flier since she's bigger... > > Funny, I've discussed this one on the Nabokov list too. There's > a very rough trend that bigger birds fly slightly faster, but the > fastest birds are swifts, which are pretty small. For stamina, > there's really no correlation. To a first approximation, size > doesn't matter. I doubt you heard it here first. > > Of course, we have no idea what sexual dimorphism is like in jhereg > beyond the size difference. I don't think we even know what color > they are. > > Jerry Friedman > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! > http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ > From ljenab at sunflower.com Wed Jan 28 20:14:00 2004 From: ljenab at sunflower.com (Lawrence Jenab) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 22:14:00 -0600 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <000b01c3e61e$561aa520$444f7c18@dell> ----- Original Message ----- From: "M J" To: Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 9:31 PM Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? > > So, I was rereading the Amber series the other day, and I > noticed that Corwin's sword's name is Grayswandir. > > "Blackwand!" flashed across my brain, and I began to make > other demented connections, such as TALL, dresses in BLACK AND > SILVER, and IS A BADASS SORCERER AND SWORDSMAN. Morrolan > e'Drien does not, as far as we know, have an annoying son who > hangs out with an annoying nephew and invents annoying > computers, but he DOES hang out with Verra, a Chaotic sort if > ever there was one, although I am not sure Verra is in any way > descended from Khaavren, who is of course the Dragaeran > version of Benedict. (... Khaavren may well be more glompable > than Benedict, but I cannot swear to this.) > > I wish I could do better for Aliera than Fiona, which would > make Mario Julian, which cracks me up, but I just can't. If > she were, say, Deirdre, this would be Wrong, Inaccurate, and > Ridiculous. > > I bet that makes Daymar Brand, only Daymar doesn't want to rub > anyone's nose in anything, and I'm not sure that he's ever > tried to kill an illegitimate nephew. (Do those exist? Or is > illegitimacy only reserved for children? No, they exist. > Phew.) > > Anyway, what I think I'm trying to say is, I need someone to > smack me and tell me "NO STOP THIS IS WRONG AND SILLY," and > where better to find this than on the Dragaera List? > > =AC > MJ > > PS I bet people get Dworkin and Barritt confused all the > time. > > > I discovered the Dragaera books by asking around for "something like Zelazney's Amber books that I haven't read already." BTW, the other great result that inquiry returned was Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. Many roads lead back to RZ. LJ From davids at kithrup.com Wed Jan 28 21:18:10 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 21:18:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, M J wrote: > >So, I was rereading the Amber series the other day, and I >noticed that Corwin's sword's name is Grayswandir. > >"Blackwand!" flashed across my brain, and I began to make >other demented connections, such as TALL, dresses in BLACK AND >SILVER, and IS A BADASS SORCERER AND SWORDSMAN.??Morrolan >e'Drien Well. I bow to you, for I believe you have found a significant connexion here. In addition, I note that Morrolan, like another certain character, woke up (as it were) not knowing who he really was, in several different respects. >descended from Khaavren, who is of course the Dragaeran version of >Benedict.??(... Khaavren may well be more glompable than Benedict, >but I cannot swear to this.) I am afraid that here, I cannot agree. Benedict is the General Who Never Dies, and thus, you perceive, for reasons perhaps best known to himself, has undergone a sex-change and become Sethra Lavode. Is Sethra Lavode glompable? > >Anyway, what I think I'm trying to say is, I need someone to >smack me and tell me "NO STOP THIS IS WRONG AND SILLY," and >where better to find this than on the Dragaera List? > NO STOP [YOU STARTED OUT WELL BUT] THIS IS [NOW] WRONG AND SILLY!!!!! From matthew at infodancer.org Wed Jan 28 21:23:39 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:23:39 -0600 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <20040129052339.GD16408@infodancer.org> On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 09:18:10PM -0800, David Silberstein wrote: > Is Sethra Lavode glompable? Once. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Wed Jan 28 21:58:43 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 21:58:43 -0800 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <000b01c3e61e$561aa520$444f7c18@dell> References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> <000b01c3e61e$561aa520$444f7c18@dell> Message-ID: <31C37C00-5220-11D8-9041-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> > I discovered the Dragaera books by asking around for "something like > Zelazney's Amber books that I haven't read already." Fascinating. I had a somewhat similar experience. I had read Zelazny and loved him, and after finishing his books, looked for something that would be as intriguing and just plain wholesome indescribeabley good as Zelazny, and lo and behold, Roger Zelazny himself recommended Brust and that was good enough for me. -Jeff From bio_phy at hotmail.com Wed Jan 28 22:40:56 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 00:40:56 -0600 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: That, by the way, is how I found Walter Jon Williams. (I prefer SKJB.) johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >>I discovered the Dragaera books by asking around for "something like >>Zelazney's Amber books that I haven't read already." > >Fascinating. I had a somewhat similar experience. I had read Zelazny and >loved him, and after finishing his books, looked for something that would >be as intriguing and just plain wholesome indescribeabley good as Zelazny, >and lo and behold, Roger Zelazny himself recommended Brust and that was >good enough for me. > >-Jeff _________________________________________________________________ Check out the new MSN 9 Dial-up ? fast & reliable Internet access with prime features! http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=dialup/home&ST=1 From davids at kithrup.com Wed Jan 28 23:13:44 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:13:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Johne Cook wrote: > > (I prefer SKJB.) > Really, I shouldn't snark, but: Steven K. "Joltin'" Brust? From casey at the-bat.net Wed Jan 28 23:16:46 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 02:16:46 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <000201c3e637$dcbdec90$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> In truth, I've never read the two close together, but certainly Steve has never been one to be shy about throwing in an homage or two to a favorite influence, which RZ explicitly was _before_ he was so kind as to give Steve's carreer a boost by providing a forward for _TRiH_. After that contribution they became friends by all reports. Casey From casey at the-bat.net Wed Jan 28 23:27:35 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 02:27:35 -0500 Subject: Steve's weblog Message-ID: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> Wow. Two entries. In the space of two minutes! Yikes. You've gone all prolific on us, Steve. :) Seriously, you're the second person that has recommended _The Professor and the Madman_. My wife enjoyed it thoroughly. Also, I'm delighted that you still like Vlad. Similarly, treasures simply don't belong in pawnshops. Casey Sheesh. I need an editor. From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Thu Jan 29 02:23:21 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 02:23:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: <200401291023.i0TANLB15637@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> From: David Silberstein On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, M J wrote: >>So, I was rereading the Amber series the other day, and I >>noticed that Corwin's sword's name is Grayswandir. >> >>"Blackwand!" flashed across my brain, and I began to make >>other demented connections, such as TALL, dresses in BLACK AND >>SILVER, and IS A BADASS SORCERER AND SWORDSMAN.??Morrolan >>e'Drien > >Well. I bow to you, for I believe you have found a significant >connexion here. There does seem to be certain similarity in the names. I think there's a different series that's a closer match in this particular case -- can anyone think of a well-known fantasy series hero that is an elven sorcerer who wields a large black soul-devouring sword? There are a number of other parallels between the two, ranging from the obvious to the strained. -- David Goldfarb |"An athiest is a person who wierdly refuses goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |to recieve the gift of beleif in a diety." goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dave Langford, on rec.arts.sf.fandom From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Thu Jan 29 04:29:12 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 04:29:12 -0800 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <6979EE8C-5210-11D8-A4F4-0003938F1608@comcast.net> References: <20040128234142.74863.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> <6979EE8C-5210-11D8-A4F4-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <94vh10pm17e57v60113s086i2g112l6nug@4ax.com> On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:05:44 -0500, you wrote: >Doesn't this all get back to the English vs the African Swallow? http://www.style.org/unladenswallow/ -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From mam at theworld.com Thu Jan 29 08:27:11 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:27:11 -0500 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040128234142.74863.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: #Of course, we have no idea what sexual dimorphism is like in jhereg #beyond the size difference. I don't think we even know what color #they are. As I remember it, text says approx. "Among jhereg the female is dominant. Among Jhereg the issue is still undecided." That's not dimorphism, but it's related. This is where (the jhereg who is about to be named) Rocza has saved Vlad's life in the battle with Mellar, Aliera & others have just teleported in with Loiosh, and the two jhereg are getting acquainted. Or maybe it's in the next scene, when Vlad is recovering in Castle Black. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Thu Jan 29 08:30:11 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:30:11 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040128174246.02224d50@mail.whiterose.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Greg Morrow wrote: #Note that, apparently from Aliera's case, being half-god doesn't count as #being a cross-breed, which is moderately interesting considering the #general Dragaeran opinion of gods, which implies that cross-breeding with #gods is OK because gods are powerful, not because gods are divine (or #otherwise special). Or maybe because gods aren't of a Dragaeran House. Maybe the taboo is only, or primarily, on cross-HOUSE pairing. Aibynn is a Houseless Dragaeran (by race, not as in "citizen of the Empire"), an immigrant or refugee from Greenaere. If he doesn't join a House, I postulate that he could still marry and father a child without stigma, or at least without the stigma attaching to inter-House marriage and parentage. -- Mark A. Mandel From Randi128 at aol.com Thu Jan 29 08:32:20 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:32:20 EST Subject: Steve's weblog Message-ID: <1d6.19386c9e.2d4a8f94@aol.com> Amazing! Two entries. Someone must have lit a fire under your ass. Anyway, treasures at the pawnshop? My god man, your supposed to tell us about how glamorous and exciting it is have the adulation of millions of fans. Your supposed to tell us that your living in the lap of luxury and writing your novels in a posh study that looks out over a beautiful landscape on your ten acre, well manicured estate. This reality thing sucks. I suppose you still drive that 92' Mazda too? No, No, don't tell me I don't want to know. I have my hands over my ears and am singing La, La, La. I can't hear you.......... John D. Barbato, OD From mam at theworld.com Thu Jan 29 08:37:55 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:37:55 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <1075348627.2558.2.camel@loiosh> Message-ID: On 28 Jan 2004, Jag wrote: #And don't forget, Steven was friends with Zelazney. And a great admirer. See "To Reign In Hell" (intro by R.Z.). -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Thu Jan 29 08:40:30 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:40:30 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: #I am afraid that here, I cannot agree. Benedict is the General Who #Never Dies, and thus, you perceive, for reasons perhaps best known to #himself, has undergone a sex-change and become Sethra Lavode. That was The Colonel Who Has Never Died, until he became came The Colonel Who Has Never Been Killed By Another. (I'm not applying sequence of tenses to the epithets where the author did.) -- Mark A. Mandel From Randi128 at aol.com Thu Jan 29 09:00:25 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:00:25 EST Subject: Steve's weblog Message-ID: In a message dated 01/29/2004 11:51:45 AM Eastern Standard Time, yaga at yaga-ysgs.com writes: > At 11:32 AM 1/29/2004, Randi128 at aol.com wrote: > >Amazing! Two entries. Someone must have lit a fire under your ass. Anyway, > >treasures at the pawnshop? My god man, your supposed to tell us about how > >glamorous and exciting it is have the adulation of millions of fans. Your > >supposed > >to tell us that your living in the lap of luxury and writing your novels in > a > >posh study that looks out over a beautiful landscape on your ten acre, well > >manicured estate. > > I think you're thinking of Mark Leyner (_Et Tu, Babe_) -- but no worries, I > get them confused myself > > - Peter / Yaga > Not again!!!!! Alzheimers at 35. Lol. ;) John D. Barbato, OD From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Thu Jan 29 09:21:06 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 12:21:06 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <20040129172106.GA63942@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 10:31:18PM -0500, M J wrote: > Anyway, what I think I'm trying to say is, I need someone to > smack me and tell me "NO STOP THIS IS WRONG AND SILLY," and > where better to find this than on the Dragaera List? Come closer, you're not in arms reach yet. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Thu Jan 29 09:54:18 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 09:54:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: <200401291754.i0THsIg16774@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> > > (I prefer SKJB.) > > > > Really, I shouldn't snark, but: Steven K. "Joltin'" Brust? Should that not be "Jolt'em"? I'm guaranteed at least 17 jolts a book, in one form or another.... :) Chris "Blind man's night is music to the deaf, and everyone has *two* paths, not one, whence comes tragedy and comedy, forsooth and damn straight, son." - "The Gypsy" - Brust & Lindholm From Randi128 at aol.com Thu Jan 29 10:17:16 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:17:16 EST Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: <148.2175e5e1.2d4aa82c@aol.com> In a message dated 01/29/2004 12:54:56 PM Eastern Standard Time, Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM writes: > > > (I prefer SKJB.) > > > > > > > Really, I shouldn't snark, but: Steven K. "Joltin'" Brust? > > Should that not be "Jolt'em"? > > I'm guaranteed at least 17 jolts a book, in one form > or another.... > > :) > Chris > I think it should Steven K. 'I am a clever bastard' Brust. But that's just my opinion. In fact I believe that's what 'Zoltan" means. John D. Barbato, OD From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Jan 29 10:47:24 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:47:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Greg Morrow wrote: > > #Note that, apparently from Aliera's case, being half-god doesn't count as > #being a cross-breed, which is moderately interesting considering the > #general Dragaeran opinion of gods, which implies that cross-breeding with > #gods is OK because gods are powerful, not because gods are divine (or > #otherwise special). > > Or maybe because gods aren't of a Dragaeran House. Maybe the taboo is > only, or primarily, on cross-HOUSE pairing. > > Aibynn is a Houseless Dragaeran (by race, not as in "citizen of the > Empire"), an immigrant or refugee from Greenaere. If he doesn't join a > House, I postulate that he could still marry and father a child without > stigma, or at least without the stigma attaching to inter-House marriage > and parentage. I'd bet an orb that Aibynn is of sub-Jhereg status at best and sub-Teckla status at worst (more likely the latter) and would be treated as such for questions of stigma. From jalipaz at stanford.edu Thu Jan 29 10:54:11 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:54:11 -0800 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > >> On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Greg Morrow wrote: >> >> #Note that, apparently from Aliera's case, being half-god doesn't count as >> #being a cross-breed, which is moderately interesting considering the >> #general Dragaeran opinion of gods, which implies that cross-breeding with > > #gods is OK because gods are powerful, not because gods are divine (or > > #otherwise special). I am not sure that Adron or Aleria ever made her parentage generally known. In which case no one would suspect that she wasn't 100% dragon. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Jan 29 10:54:40 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:54:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's weblog In-Reply-To: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: > Seriously, you're the second person that has recommended _The Professor and > the Madman_. One thumb down - I found it slight, repetitive, and shapeless. Just started into David Simon's _Homicide_ - about detectives in Baltimore. Some of the dialogue has a definite Jhereg feel. From bio_phy at hotmail.com Thu Jan 29 11:16:26 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 13:16:26 -0600 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: One typo and you're scarred for life... ;) johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations > > > (I prefer SKJB.) > > > > > > > Really, I shouldn't snark, but: Steven K. "Joltin'" Brust? > >Should that not be "Jolt'em"? _________________________________________________________________ Check out the coupons and bargains on MSN Offers! http://shopping.msn.com/softcontent/softcontent.aspx?scmId=1418 From alexx at panix.com Thu Jan 29 12:34:32 2004 From: alexx at panix.com (Alexx Kay) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:34:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040128174246.02224d50@mail.whiterose.org> from "Greg Morrow" at Jan 28, 2004 05:52:13 PM Message-ID: <200401292034.i0TKYWO04369@panix2.panix.com> > > Jerry Friedman wondered aloud to the group: > >By the way, since we're talking about female Dragaerans too, do Dragons > >ever inherit their "e'" surname from their mother? > > I suspect that when two Dragons agree to parent a child, there is an > agreement made as to which line-name the child will bear. Some agreements > will be morganatic, some patrilineal, some matrilineal, some whichever > line-name is of higher prestige, some whichever line is more in need of an > heir. I don't recall having heard the word "morgantic" before. Luckily, google (of course) had: "MORGANTIC MARRIAGE - During the middle ages, there was an intermediate estate between matrimony and concubinage, known by this name. It is defined to be a lawful and inseparable conjunction of a single man, of noble and illustrious birth, with a single woman of an inferior or plebeian station, upon this condition, that neither the wife nor children should partake of the title, arms, or dignity of the husband, nor succeed to his inheritance, but should have a certain allowance assigned to them by the morgantic contract. The marriage ceremony was regularly performed; the union: was for life and indissoluble; and the children were considered legitimate, though they could not inherit." Amusingly, when I looked, google asked "Did you mean _morganti_?" I tried that search as well, just for kicks. Turns out to be a relatively common last name. Searching on "moganti weapon" turns up our "friends", with Cracks and Shards as the first link. Alexx Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers. alexx at carolingiaSPAMBL@CK.org http://www.panix.com/~alexx Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. From mam at theworld.com Thu Jan 29 13:48:52 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 16:48:52 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <200401292034.i0TKYWO04369@panix2.panix.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Alexx Kay wrote: #> #> Jerry Friedman wondered aloud to the group: #> >By the way, since we're talking about female Dragaerans too, do Dragons #> >ever inherit their "e'" surname from their mother? #> #> I suspect that when two Dragons agree to parent a child, there is an #> agreement made as to which line-name the child will bear. Some agreements #> will be morganatic, some patrilineal, some matrilineal, some whichever #> line-name is of higher prestige, some whichever line is more in need of an #> heir. # #I don't recall having heard the word "morgantic" before. Luckily, google #(of course) had: #"MORGANTIC MARRIAGE - During the middle ages, there was an Note that it's "morgantic". You were lucky that The 'Lectric Law Library's Lexicon misspelled it in the same way you did. Google gives me 44 hits for this spelling, vs. about 2,270 for the correct one. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Thu Jan 29 13:53:54 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 16:53:54 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: # #On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: #> Aibynn is a Houseless Dragaeran (by race, not as in "citizen of the #> Empire"), an immigrant or refugee from Greenaere. If he doesn't join a #> House, I postulate that he could still marry and father a child without #> stigma, or at least without the stigma attaching to inter-House marriage #> and parentage. # #I'd bet an orb that Aibynn is of sub-Jhereg status at best and sub-Teckla #status at worst (more likely the latter) and would be treated as such for #questions of stigma. We won't know till we get some evidence. -- Mark M. From jalipaz at stanford.edu Thu Jan 29 14:02:58 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:02:58 -0800 Subject: sethra Message-ID: does anyone know when does the 'sethra' book hit the stores? From davids at kithrup.com Thu Jan 29 14:04:21 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:04:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Philip Hart wrote: >On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > >> On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Greg Morrow wrote: >> #Note that, apparently from Aliera's case, being half-god doesn't >> #count as being a cross-breed, which is moderately interesting >> #considering the general Dragaeran opinion of gods, which implies >> #that cross-breeding with gods is OK because gods are powerful, not >> #because gods are divine (or otherwise special). >> Or maybe because gods aren't of a Dragaeran House. Maybe the taboo >> is only, or primarily, on cross-HOUSE pairing. >> Aibynn is a Houseless Dragaeran (by race, not as in "citizen of the >> Empire"), an immigrant or refugee from Greenaere. If he doesn't >> join a House, I postulate that he could still marry and father a >> child without stigma, or at least without the stigma attaching to >> inter-House marriage and parentage. >I'd bet an orb that Aibynn is of sub-Jhereg status at best and >sub-Teckla status at worst (more likely the latter) and would be >treated as such for questions of stigma. > I'd interpret his status as being exactly that of a Jhereg, for the purpose of matrimony at any rate. The Jhereg are the House of bastards and cross-breeds; their House genetic signature is not that of the animal jhereg but is rather a "mish-mash". Given that Aibynn would appear to be such a "mish-mash" as well, I imagine he would be as acceptable as a Jhereg, regardless of whether he actively went and bought a title in that House. To the other Houses, of course, Jhereg already have stigma, even for those who are not part of the Organization. From davids at kithrup.com Thu Jan 29 14:07:39 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:07:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > >#"MORGANTIC MARRIAGE - During the middle ages, there was an > >Note that it's "morgantic". You were lucky that The 'Lectric Law >Library's Lexicon misspelled it in the same way you did. Google gives me >44 hits for this spelling, vs. about 2,270 for the correct one. > The OED confirms this, and offers the following bit of etymology: [ad. mod.L. morganaticus (whence G. morganatisch, F. morganatique, It. morganatico, etc.) evolved from the med.L. phrase matrimonium ad morganaticam, where the last word is prob. synonymous with morganaticum MORNING-GIFT, f. OHG. morgan (= MORN) in *morgangeba morning-gift (morganegiba in Gregory of Tours, 6th c.; MHG. morgeng?be). The literal meaning of the term 'morganatic marriage' (matrimonium ad morganaticam) is, as is explained in a 16th c. passage quoted by Du Cange, a marriage by which the wife and the children that may be born are entitled to no share in the husband's possessions beyond the 'morning-gift'.] The distinctive epithet of that kind of marriage by which a man of exalted rank takes to wife a woman of lower station, with the provision that she remain in her former rank, and that the issue of the marriage have no claim to succeed to the possessions or dignities of their father; also, occasionally, used to designate the marriage, under similar conditions, of a woman of exalted rank to a man of inferior station. Hence morganatic husband, wife. A morganatic marriage is sometimes called a 'left-handed marriage' (G. Ehe zur linkenhand), because in the ceremony the bridegroom gave the bride his left hand instead of his right. The latter term is sometimes used in a wider sense, for the matrimonium in?quale of German law, in which, though the spouse of inferior rank was not elevated, the children retained the rights of succession. From davids at kithrup.com Thu Jan 29 14:12:11 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:12:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: sethra In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: >does anyone know when does the 'sethra' book hit the stores? > No. Well, the publishing date is April 2004, but /The Lord of Castle Black/ was a bit late. And even then, the release was staggered so that the book hit different stores at different dates. So it depends on where you live and stuff. From casey at the-bat.net Thu Jan 29 14:15:23 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:15:23 -0500 Subject: sethra Message-ID: Julie Alipaz asked: > > does anyone know when does the 'sethra' book hit the stores? > Hasn't yet. Due April Fool's. You can preorder from amazon and other online vendors. From casey at the-bat.net Thu Jan 29 14:21:56 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:21:56 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: David Silberstein wrote: > To the other Houses, of course, Jhereg already have stigma, > even for those who are not part of the Organization. We have not seen any stories set when a house other than Phoenix was on the throne. My understanding of the relative social statuses of the noble Houses was their relative ascendancy in the Cycle. Hence, I would expect that during a Vallista Reign there would be much less stigma attached to being of House Jhereg. Casey Rousseau From jalipaz at stanford.edu Thu Jan 29 14:30:42 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:30:42 -0800 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: > > >We have not seen any stories set when a house other than Phoenix was on the >throne. My understanding of the relative social statuses of the noble >Houses was their relative ascendancy in the Cycle. > lord of castle black was written in the dragon reign- -- Department of Biological Sciences Palumbi Lab Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University Blinks Oceanview Blvd Pacific Grove, Ca 93950 jalipaz at stanford.edu phone: 831-655-6210 Often statistics are used as drunken men use lampposts... for support rather than illumination. Albert Einstein From casey at the-bat.net Thu Jan 29 14:38:31 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:38:31 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Julie Alipaz wrote: > lord of castle black was written in the dragon reign- Written during Norathar's reign, yes, but set at the start of a Phoenix reign. Regardless, I think you'd hardly notice the change in relative social ranks. (Especially as there are so few Phoenix!) Casey Rousseau From mr1 at rcosta.com Thu Jan 29 14:16:47 2004 From: mr1 at rcosta.com (Michele Riccio) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:16:47 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40193FFF.21178.B7202F@localhost> On 29 Jan 2004 at 14:04, David Silberstein wrote > I'd interpret his status as being exactly that of a Jhereg, for the > purpose of matrimony at any rate. The Jhereg are the House of > bastards and cross-breeds; their House genetic signature is not that > of the animal jhereg but is rather a "mish-mash". Given that Aibynn > would appear to be such a "mish-mash" as well, I imagine he would be > as acceptable as a Jhereg, regardless of whether he actively went and > bought a title in that House. > Where did the inhabitants of Greenaere come from? I'm remembering something about the mainland (Dragaera) invading the islands several times...but I could be wrong. Assuming (and I know that I'm opening myself for attack now) that Greenaere's population is made up of the ancestors of said invaders. Is it plausible that all houses were represented? I don't suppose that the Jhereg care what Aibynn's genes are like, but now I'm wondering... M Michele Riccio mr1 at rcosta.com From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Jan 29 14:42:42 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:42:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: > David Silberstein wrote: > > To the other Houses, of course, Jhereg already have stigma, > > even for those who are not part of the Organization. > > We have not seen any stories set when a house other than Phoenix was on the > throne. My understanding of the relative social statuses of the noble > Houses was their relative ascendancy in the Cycle. > > Hence, I would expect that during a Vallista Reign there would be much less > stigma attached to being of House Jhereg. I had thought _influence_ went with the Cycle, and I can imagine status following influence to some extent - but I can't imagine any point in the Cycle where House Lyorn will be looked down on like House Jhereg is now. From hans117 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 29 14:59:21 2004 From: hans117 at yahoo.com (Hans Schweitzer) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:59:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <40193FFF.21178.B7202F@localhost> Message-ID: <20040129225922.59074.qmail@web13808.mail.yahoo.com> >Where did the inhabitants of Greenaere come from? I'm >remembering something about the mainland (Dragaera) invading >the islands several times...but I could be wrong. >Assuming (and I know that I'm opening myself for attack now) that >Greenaere's population is made up of the ancestors of said >invaders. Is it plausible that all houses were represented? I don't >suppose that the Jhereg care what Aibynn's genes are like, but now >I'm wondering... I think that there are four possibilities. One the empire colonized, but the colonies rebelled for whatever reason and eventually interbred. Personally I find this least likely because the Empire has a pretty clear definition of citizens and the House culture is firmly rooted, but I guess where the Orb cannot reach it would make a lot of sense, and there are so many generations between the formation of the empire and Vlad's time that it is very possible. Two the people are descendants from other tribes that existed there before the empire and never considered joining. Three Crossbreeds, people in love, exiles ect. decide they don't like the empire and go outside its boundaries developing an independent society. Four, (my personal favorite) the J set up the population of Greenaere as a control group for their experiments. These people were not mixed with any animal. It would be a good idea to put them on islands for this purpose. --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! From alexx at panix.com Thu Jan 29 15:06:08 2004 From: alexx at panix.com (Alexx Kay) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:06:08 -0500 (EST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: from "Philip Hart" at Jan 29, 2004 02:42:42 PM Message-ID: <200401292306.i0TN68s20249@panix2.panix.com> > On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: > > > David Silberstein wrote: > > > > We have not seen any stories set when a house other than Phoenix was on the > > throne. My understanding of the relative social statuses of the noble > > Houses was their relative ascendancy in the Cycle. > > > > Hence, I would expect that during a Vallista Reign there would be much less > > stigma attached to being of House Jhereg. > > I had thought _influence_ went with the Cycle, and I can imagine status > following influence to some extent - but I can't imagine any point in the > Cycle where House Lyorn will be looked down on like House Jhereg is now. I can. I see lots of real-world examples of cultures which are (at least briefly) obsessed with novelty, to the extent that people who are concerned with things like honor, tradition, and intellectual thinking are seen as pariahs. I think such meme-plexes are unstable and self-defeating, but they definitely *do* occur periodically. Admittedly, it's rare for them to heap as much scorn on intellectuals as is more generally heaped on Organized Crime -- but I don't think it's unheard of. Alexx Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers. alexx at carolingiaSPAMBL@CK.org http://www.panix.com/~alexx (At the Bad Habit there was some brief discussion of how many things one could do at once. For instance, is it possible to have net access, a job, a social life, and be romantically involved with one or more people? I believe the consensus was "yes, but you don't get to sleep...") -- Sean McGuire From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Jan 29 15:12:50 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:12:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <200401292306.i0TN68s20249@panix2.panix.com> References: <200401292306.i0TN68s20249@panix2.panix.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Alexx Kay wrote: > > I had thought _influence_ went with the Cycle, and I can imagine status > > following influence to some extent - but I can't imagine any point in the > > Cycle where House Lyorn will be looked down on like House Jhereg is now. > > I can. I see lots of real-world examples of cultures which are (at least > briefly) obsessed with novelty, to the extent that people who are concerned > with things like honor, tradition, and intellectual thinking are seen as > pariahs. I think such meme-plexes are unstable and self-defeating, but > they definitely *do* occur periodically. Admittedly, it's rare for them to > heap as much scorn on intellectuals as is more generally heaped on Organized > Crime -- but I don't think it's unheard of. I don't think the Lyorn would accept such a situation. I _know_ the Dzur wouldn't. Marginalized, sure, but sneered at? But ok, I shouldn't argue from the limits of what I can imagine. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Jan 29 15:58:21 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 15:58:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: > >On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > > >> On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, Greg Morrow wrote: > >> > >> #Note that, apparently from Aliera's case, being half-god doesn't count as > >> #being a cross-breed, which is moderately interesting considering the > >> #general Dragaeran opinion of gods, which implies that cross-breeding with > > > #gods is OK because gods are powerful, not because gods are divine (or > > > #otherwise special). > > I am not sure that Adron or Aleria ever made her parentage generally > known. In which case no one would suspect that she wasn't 100% > dragon. Aliera I suspect is in fact 100% Dragon genetically, who knows how, whatever that has to say about her blood. Note that she was the heir, and her exact lineage would be known to the Dragon Council. Anyone else asking would certainly end up in many little pieces. From ehahn at isochronism.com Thu Jan 29 17:01:36 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 20:01:36 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> Message-ID: It's wrong and silly. First off, the quality of writing, plotting, and characterization in Mr. Brust's novels are far superior. I'm not just saying this because Steve's listening - in fact he's going to be annoyed at this next sentence: I got about 5 books into the Amber series and decided that it wasn't worth my time to read the rest. ed On 28 Jan 2004, at 10:31 PM, M J wrote: > Anyway, what I think I'm trying to say is, I need someone to > smack me and tell me "NO STOP THIS IS WRONG AND SILLY," and > where better to find this than on the Dragaera List? > -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Thu Jan 29 17:34:24 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 17:34:24 -0800 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex References: <20040129225922.59074.qmail@web13808.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <004701c3e6d1$350c55a0$6701a8c0@DELL1> I'm away from Jhereg right now, but I believe that is what the Easterners were for. >>Four, (my personal favorite) the J set up the population of Greenaere as a control group for their experiments. These >>people were not mixed with any animal. It would be a good idea to put them on islands for this purpose. Akodo Bob From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Thu Jan 29 17:43:18 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 20:43:18 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: <200401292043.AA503972136@amish2000.com> ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Edward Hahn Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 20:01:36 -0500 >It's wrong and silly. > >First off, the quality of writing, plotting, and characterization in >Mr. Brust's novels are far superior. > >I'm not just saying this because Steve's listening - in fact he's going >to be annoyed at this next sentence: I got about 5 books into the >Amber series and decided that it wasn't worth my time to read the rest. Er. Well, first of all, thanks. Secondly, I liked the first five books, but something about Merlin annoyed the SNOT out of me. Perhaps it's because he was Dara- spawn, and Dara is Icky, but most likely because there wasn't nearly enough Benedict in it. And yes, SKZB writes some damn fine stuff, doesn't he. ? MJ From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Thu Jan 29 17:49:28 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 20:49:28 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: <200401292049.AA225378352@amish2000.com> From: David Silberstein Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 21:18:10 -0800 (PST) >On Wed, 28 Jan 2004, M J wrote: >>So, I was rereading the Amber series the other day, and I >>noticed that Corwin's sword's name is Grayswandir. >> >>"Blackwand!" flashed across my brain, and I began to make >>other demented connections, such as TALL, dresses in BLACK AND >>SILVER, and IS A BADASS SORCERER AND SWORDSMAN.??Morrolan >>e'Drien > >Well. I bow to you, for I believe you have found a significant >connexion here. > >In addition, I note that Morrolan, like another certain character, >woke up (as it were) not knowing who he really was, in several >different respects. Coo. True. He did. Also, his brother's name was Molric, and Corwin's brother's name was Eric. The real fly in the pudding here is that Molric seems to be largely unobjectionable, whilst Eric was pretty icky. >>descended from Khaavren, who is of course the Dragaeran version of >>Benedict.??(... Khaavren may well be more glompable than Benedict, >>but I cannot swear to this.) > >I am afraid that here, I cannot agree. Benedict is the General Who >Never Dies, and thus, you perceive, for reasons perhaps best known to >himself, has undergone a sex-change and become Sethra Lavode. ... In that case, Sethra is muchly to be preferred, as she has spawned no Dara. (Although she did hang out with Sethra the Younger, who is also fairly BLARGH EW.) >Is Sethra Lavode glompable? ... Well, yes. But she, unlike Daymar, must be asked first. >>Anyway, what I think I'm trying to say is, I need someone to >>smack me and tell me "NO STOP THIS IS WRONG AND SILLY," and >>where better to find this than on the Dragaera List? > >NO STOP [YOU STARTED OUT WELL BUT] THIS IS [NOW] WRONG AND SILLY!!!!! Ghostwheel reminds me of the Orb! Although I have to say that there is no Zerika-figure in Amber at all, unless it's the Unicorn, which it isn't. ? MJ, resolving to be less silly, but pr'y still wrong From davids at kithrup.com Thu Jan 29 18:35:04 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:35:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <200401292049.AA225378352@amish2000.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, M J wrote: >(Although she did hang out with Sethra the >Younger, who is also fairly BLARGH EW.) Well, we can take comfort from the fact that Sethra Lavode has whomped Sethra the Younger's ARSE with a great big whomping-stick. Or the moral equivalent thereof. > Ghostwheel reminds me of the Orb! Well, the Pattern would appear to be the Cycle+Paths of the Dead, kinda sorta. > Although I have to say that there is no Zerika-figure in Amber at >all, unless it's the Unicorn, which it isn't. Hm. How about Random? Goes from unambitious, practically anonymous gadabout+drummer to Regal Figure. Which kinda makes the Jewel of Judgment the Orb, and the Unicorn is therefore Lords of Judgement+Sethra Lavode, which is not a bad thing to be, I think, although it might depend on *which* Lords of Judgement she is, since Barlen's a dork. >MJ, >resolving to be less silly, but pr'y still wrong > Well, now you've got *me* doing it. Since I am never worgn, and never, ever silly, you benefit from my participation, in that it lends you gravitas and rectitude, and like that. From skzb at dreamcafe.com Thu Jan 29 18:45:55 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:45:55 -0800 Subject: Steve's weblog References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> Message-ID: <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> > > > On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: > > > Seriously, you're the second person that has recommended _The Professor and > > the Madman_. > > One thumb down - I found it slight, repetitive, and shapeless. > > Just started into David Simon's _Homicide_ - about detectives in > Baltimore. Some of the dialogue has a definite Jhereg feel. > "Homicde" about detectives in Baltimore? Is that the book the TV show was based on? From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 29 18:50:42 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:50:42 -0800 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <17FFFC18-52CF-11D8-96E0-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> > It's wrong and silly. > > First off, the quality of writing, plotting, and characterization in > Mr. Brust's novels are far superior. > > I'm not just saying this because Steve's listening - in fact he's > going to be annoyed at this next sentence: I got about 5 books into > the Amber series and decided that it wasn't worth my time to read the > rest. > > ed Well, with all due respect to Mr. Brust; I love his works dearly, but I think that one must recognize Zelazny as one of the greatest fantasy writers. I've read many of his works, Amber, Lord of Light, and especially The Immortal. I mean, people, there's a reason The Immortal shared a Hugo with DUNE, unarguably one of the great sci-fi books of all time. Amber was an incredibly world, sophisticated and developed to an unappreciable level, as was, I should say, the Dragaeraean Empire has. There are many similarities. Namely, the very basic nature of the world they live in. Dragaeraeans and Amerbites live an incredibly long time by our "human" (read eastern) (I hope people get that) standards. Corwin's sense of humor, his actions, and in a sense, his moral system is very analogous to Vlad's. They both have a wry, somewhat cynical, sense of humor. They often take to dark sorts of brooding, and their moral system was really that they felt that had loyalties to certain things, including themselves and would fight for them. I recall a moment in the Amber series where Corwin wonders why he wants the throne back, which is very reminiscent (or rather, vice-versa) of Vlad wondering why he wants to get Cawti back. > First off, the quality of writing, plotting, and characterization in > Mr. Brust's novels are far superior. While I in no way mean to cheapen the quality of Brust's work, I respectfully disagree. I mean to show you that they are equals, in their own way. Brust is on the highest pedestal in The moral tribulations and journeys to really discover what they want and who they are are very similar for both Vlad and Corwin (and Merlin as well). Quality of writing is certainly very subjective, but who cannot be struck by the beautiful, striking imagery of Zelazny's work as his characters walk through shadow to a new place? Plot development again is equal. I do not wish to spoil any of the plot for those who do not know the plot, so I will remain silent on that account except to respectfully disagree. The character development I think, is covered in the above sections. > I'm not just saying this because Steve's listening - in fact he's > going to be annoyed at this next sentence: I got about 5 books into > the Amber series and decided that it wasn't worth my time to read the > rest. > You're missing a darn good read! ;-) -Jeff From mam at theworld.com Thu Jan 29 18:58:58 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 21:58:58 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: #>We have not seen any stories set when a house other than Phoenix was on the #>throne. My understanding of the relative social statuses of the noble #>Houses was their relative ascendancy in the Cycle. #> #lord of castle black was written in the dragon reign- But SET in the Interregnum. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Thu Jan 29 18:58:55 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 18:58:55 -0800 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <17FFFC18-52CF-11D8-96E0-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> <17FFFC18-52CF-11D8-96E0-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3DDE9FBF-52D0-11D8-B8DB-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Edit. Sorry I left out a sentence. On Jan 29, 2004, at 6:50 PM, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > It's wrong and silly. > > First off, the quality of writing, plotting, and characterization in > Mr. Brust's novels are far superior. > > I'm not just saying this because Steve's listening - in fact he's > going to be annoyed at this next sentence: I got about 5 books into > the Amber series and decided that it wasn't worth my time to read the > rest. > > ed Well, with all due respect to Mr. Brust; I love his works dearly, but I think that one must recognize Zelazny as one of the greatest fantasy writers. I've read many of his works, Amber, Lord of Light, and especially The Immortal. I mean, people, there's a reason The Immortal shared a Hugo with DUNE, unarguably one of the great sci-fi books of all time. Amber was an incredibly world, sophisticated and developed to an unappreciable level, as was, I should say, the Dragaeraean Empire has. There are many similarities. Namely, the very basic nature of the world they live in. Dragaeraeans and Amerbites live an incredibly long time by our "human" (read eastern) (I hope people get that) standards. Corwin's sense of humor, his actions, and in a sense, his moral system is very analogous to Vlad's. They both have a wry, somewhat cynical, sense of humor. They often take to dark sorts of brooding, and their moral system was really that they felt that had loyalties to certain things, including themselves and would fight for them. I recall a moment in the Amber series where Corwin wonders why he wants the throne back, which is very reminiscent (or rather, vice-versa) of Vlad wondering why he wants to get Cawti back. > First off, the quality of writing, plotting, and characterization in > Mr. Brust's novels are far superior. While I in no way mean to cheapen the quality of Brust's work, I respectfully disagree. I mean to show you that they are equals, in their own way. Brust is on the highest pedestal in my book, and I merely intend to put Zelazny there too. The moral tribulations and journeys to really discover what they want and who they are are very similar for both Vlad and Corwin (and Merlin as well). Quality of writing is certainly very subjective, but who cannot be struck by the beautiful, striking imagery of Zelazny's work as his characters walk through shadow to a new place? Plot development again is equal. I do not wish to spoil any of the plot for those who do not know the plot, so I will remain silent on that account except to respectfully disagree. The character development I think, is covered in the above sections. > I'm not just saying this because Steve's listening - in fact he's > going to be annoyed at this next sentence: I got about 5 books into > the Amber series and decided that it wasn't worth my time to read the > rest. > You're missing a darn good read! ;-) -Jeff From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Jan 29 19:48:53 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 19:48:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's weblog In-Reply-To: <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: > > One thumb down - I found it slight, repetitive, and shapeless. > > > > Just started into David Simon's _Homicide_ - about detectives in > > Baltimore. Some of the dialogue has a definite Jhereg feel. > > > > "Homicde" about detectives in Baltimore? Is that the book the TV show was > based on? That's correct. An interesting claim from the book - the Baltimore police dept was racist and exclusionary until after the Watts riots, when some people started realizing that was unsustainable. From feaelin at kemenel.org Thu Jan 29 20:15:13 2004 From: feaelin at kemenel.org (Iain E. Davis) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:15:13 -0600 Subject: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <004701c3e6d1$350c55a0$6701a8c0@DELL1> References: <20040129225922.59074.qmail@web13808.mail.yahoo.com> <004701c3e6d1$350c55a0$6701a8c0@DELL1> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040129220252.01b99ec0@kemenel.org> > >>Four, (my personal favorite) the J set up the population of Greenaere as a > >>control group for their experiments. These people were not mixed with any > >>animal. It would be a good idea to put them on islands for this purpose. At 07:34 PM 1/29/2004, Bob wrote: >I'm away from Jhereg right now, but I believe that is what the Easterners >were for. They were, but that doesn't preclude the possibility of other control groups. From skzb at dreamcafe.com Thu Jan 29 22:16:34 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:16:34 -0800 Subject: Steve's weblog References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: <001801c3e6f8$9caff140$fe00000a@steve> > > On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: > > > > "Homicde" about detectives in Baltimore? Is that the book the TV show was > > based on? > > That's correct. That show is, or was, a guilty pleasure of mine. I hate it that the best writing on TV is always on cop shows. Hate it. Hate hate hate. From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Thu Jan 29 22:31:01 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 01:31:01 -0500 Subject: Steve's weblog In-Reply-To: <001801c3e6f8$9caff140$fe00000a@steve> References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> <001801c3e6f8$9caff140$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: <4019FA25.6010006@earthlink.net> Steven Brust wrote: > > > > >>On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: >> >> >> >>>>"Homicde" about detectives in Baltimore? Is that the book the TV show >>>> >>>> >was > > >>>based on? >>> >>> >>That's correct. >> >> > >That show is, or was, a guilty pleasure of mine. I hate it that the best >writing on TV is always on cop shows. Hate it. Hate hate hate. > > > > You obviously never saw Firefly. Or Buffy. Or even Angel... Jose, biased -- Jose Marquez \ Cthulhu 2004 jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ Why vote for http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ the lesser evil? From skzb at dreamcafe.com Thu Jan 29 22:40:55 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:40:55 -0800 Subject: Steve's weblog References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> <001801c3e6f8$9caff140$fe00000a@steve> <4019FA25.6010006@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <000a01c3e6fc$03a44470$fe00000a@steve> > >That show is, or was, a guilty pleasure of mine. I hate it that the best > >writing on TV is always on cop shows. Hate it. Hate hate hate. > > > > > > > > > You obviously never saw Firefly. Or Buffy. Or even Angel... > Actually, I have. I'll give you Firefly. Very impressive writing. Very. From skzb at dreamcafe.com Thu Jan 29 22:41:42 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (Steven Brust) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:41:42 -0800 Subject: Steve's weblog References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> <001801c3e6f8$9caff140$fe00000a@steve> <4019FA25.6010006@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <001101c3e6fc$1f546ec0$fe00000a@steve> > >That show is, or was, a guilty pleasure of mine. I hate it that the best > >writing on TV is always on cop shows. Hate it. Hate hate hate. > > > > > > > > > You obviously never saw Firefly. Or Buffy. Or even Angel... > Actually, I have. I'll give Firefly. Very impressive writing. Very. From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Thu Jan 29 23:50:33 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 23:50:33 -0800 Subject: Steve's weblog In-Reply-To: <001801c3e6f8$9caff140$fe00000a@steve> References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> <001801c3e6f8$9caff140$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:16:34 -0800, you wrote: > > > >> On Thu, 29 Jan 2004, Steven Brust wrote: >> >> > > "Homicde" about detectives in Baltimore? Is that the book the TV show >was >> > based on? >> >> That's correct. > >That show is, or was, a guilty pleasure of mine. I hate it that the best >writing on TV is always on cop shows. Hate it. Hate hate hate. For four seasons, that was the Best Damned Show on Television. Best writing, best acting, best direction. It was amazing. Then the network decided to improve it. Boom. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From warbi at warbi.net Fri Jan 30 03:01:51 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 03:01:51 -0800 Subject: Firefly Message-ID: <00f901c3e720$77c56220$3dadfea9@warbi> > Actually, I have. I'll give you Firefly. Very impressive writing. Very. Too bad they canned it so quickly. I was really starting to enjoy it. Farscape was another show that was ended before its time. warbi From amadandedallas at yahoo.com Fri Jan 30 01:37:24 2004 From: amadandedallas at yahoo.com (James D'Amadan) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 01:37:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Firefly In-Reply-To: <00f901c3e720$77c56220$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: <20040130093724.91106.qmail@web40005.mail.yahoo.com> I believe Whedon is writing a Firefly movie to finish up the story, answer a few questions, that sort of thing. --- warbi wrote: > > > Actually, I have. I'll give you Firefly. Very > impressive writing. Very. > > Too bad they canned it so quickly. I was really > starting to enjoy it. > Farscape was another show that was ended before its > time. warbi > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From bio_phy at hotmail.com Fri Jan 30 03:07:55 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 05:07:55 -0600 Subject: Firefly Message-ID: Talk about your instant guilty pleasures. The movie is written and is in pre-production according to the DVD boxed set of the first (and only) season. Their hope is that the film is a smash and that someone will pick the show back up for further episodes. I picked up the set before Christmas but didn't have time to view it until a week or two into January. When I saw the first five minutes of the Serenity Valley pilot show, I was instantly hooked. I had the same feeling I had when viewing _Band of Brothers_ on DVD. I tore through the episodes at a pace of three per night and have raved about them to everybody I know. "Well, they tell ya never hit a man's face with a closed fist, but it is, on occasion, hilarious." Captain Malcolm Reynolds, _Firefly_ johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >From: James D'Amadan >To: dragaera at dragaera.info >Subject: Re: Firefly >Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 01:37:24 -0800 (PST) > >I believe Whedon is writing a Firefly movie to finish >up the story, answer a few questions, that sort of >thing. > > >--- warbi wrote: > > > > > Actually, I have. I'll give you Firefly. Very > > impressive writing. Very. > > > > Too bad they canned it so quickly. I was really > > starting to enjoy it. > > Farscape was another show that was ended before its > > time. warbi > > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! >http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ _________________________________________________________________ There are now three new levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage! Learn more. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=hotmail/es2&ST=1 From TimN at rcn.com Fri Jan 30 03:56:38 2004 From: TimN at rcn.com (Timothy Nelson) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 06:56:38 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> <17FFFC18-52CF-11D8-96E0-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <002801c3e728$1ed9bc80$d916fea9@ananda> I have never read any of the Amber series, indeed, none of Mr. Zelazny's work at all. Does that make me an Unwashed Heathen, or Enemy of the People? *grin* Amber was forever spoiled for me by an area in a MUD I used to play... From scs at di.org Fri Jan 30 04:29:44 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 07:29:44 -0500 Subject: Steve's weblog In-Reply-To: <001101c3e6fc$1f546ec0$fe00000a@steve> References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> <001801c3e6f8$9caff140$fe00000a@steve> <4019FA25.6010006@earthlink.net> <001101c3e6fc$1f546ec0$fe00000a@steve> Message-ID: <20040130122944.GC66381@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 10:41:42PM -0800, Steven Brust wrote: > > > That show is, or was, a guilty pleasure of mine. I hate it that the > > > best writing on TV is always on cop shows. Hate it. Hate hate hate. > > You obviously never saw Firefly. Or Buffy. Or even Angel... > Actually, I have. I'll give Firefly. Very impressive writing. Very. All three written by the same guy, Josh Whedon. When Buffy was on (sadly, not frequent after the first few seasons) it had dialog to die for. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From pulmon at comcast.net Fri Jan 30 04:30:53 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 07:30:53 -0500 Subject: Awful thought Message-ID: <254BF206-5320-11D8-97E5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Now that we know that our dreamweaver is a closet devot?e of television shows, a horrible thought has occurred to me. Not only does he currently indulge in cop shows, but perhaps he started on less evolved fare of the sixties, such as "My Favorite Martian" or "My Mother the Car". Now, take this knowledge with Mr. Brust's obvious interest in horror and fantasy and his hypothetical universe where reincarnation is a reality, and the future may be revealed. After all, we have seen three things in the Dragaeran universe: one may be incarnated into a form quite different from the original (Dolivar the Dragon into Vlad the Easterner); Dragaera was settled by humans who seem to share a common heritage with us, as in Kelly's discovery of Marxist tracts that revealed to him the truth; and scientific developments occur (the orb was evolved). So, one can imagine Mr. Brust taking us either to an earthly past that is troublingly like the one in which we live, or a future which, like ontogeny, has recapitulated phylogeny. In this scenario our hero is reincarnated not as an Easterner, not as a Human, but as a murderous motor vehicle. In this tale, obviously directed at a future television serious, he will be known as.... Vlad, the Impala. From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Fri Jan 30 05:17:50 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 08:17:50 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <40193FFF.21178.B7202F@localhost> References: <40193FFF.21178.B7202F@localhost> Message-ID: <20040130131750.GB66545@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 05:16:47PM -0500, Michele Riccio wrote: > Assuming (and I know that I'm opening myself for attack now) that > Greenaere's population is made up of the ancestors of said > invaders. Is it plausible that all houses were represented? I don't > suppose that the Jhereg care what Aibynn's genes are like, but now > I'm wondering... It also makes me wonder if the separateness of the Houses is due to the Gods and the Orb. In PoTD/etc we see that the Interregnum seems to have weakened the taboo on cross-breeding. Perhaps Greenaere is the end result of what long isolation from the Orb will do? -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Fri Jan 30 05:23:40 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 08:23:40 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <002801c3e728$1ed9bc80$d916fea9@ananda> References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> <17FFFC18-52CF-11D8-96E0-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <002801c3e728$1ed9bc80$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: <20040130132340.GC66545@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 06:56:38AM -0500, Timothy Nelson wrote: > I have never read any of the Amber series, indeed, none of Mr. Zelazny's > work at all. Does that make me an Unwashed Heathen, or Enemy of the People? > *grin* It makes you someone with a lot of good reading ahead of you. With the exception of the first book, the Amber series is the weakest of Zelazny's writing. Go dig up copies of 'This Immortal', 'Lord of Light', 'Creatures of Light and Darkness' and 'Jack of Shadows,' and settle in for some fine reading. I'd recommend more Zelazny, but this note would get much too long. *Any* Zelazny short story collection is better than 99% of the stuff you find on the SF/Fantasy shelf, I believe 'Last Defender of Camelot' is still in print. The other Steve -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From scs at di.org Fri Jan 30 05:37:22 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 08:37:22 -0500 Subject: Firefly In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040130133722.GF66545@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 05:07:55AM -0600, Johne Cook wrote: > The movie is written and is in pre-production according to the DVD boxed > set of the first (and only) season. Their hope is that the film is a smash > and that someone will pick the show back up for further episodes. 'Pre-production' is such an interesting phrase. Whedon spoke in early January and said he's still looking for proper backing. He has re-signed the cast, but what that means without a backer is a mystery to me. Nathan Fillon (the Captain) was at the same talk. He was asked if the cast commitment was real. He replied that he'd skip a dialysis treatment rather than miss doing 'Firefly.' I have no clue if he actually *takes* dialysis treatments or not, but that sounds like a pretty solid commitment to me. From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Fri Jan 30 05:46:18 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 08:46:18 -0500 Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older In-Reply-To: <20040130132340.GC66545@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> <17FFFC18-52CF-11D8-96E0-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <002801c3e728$1ed9bc80$d916fea9@ananda> <20040130132340.GC66545@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Jan 30, 2004, at 8:23 AM, Steve Simmons wrote: > On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 06:56:38AM -0500, Timothy Nelson wrote: >> I have never read any of the Amber series, indeed, none of Mr. >> Zelazny's >> work at all. Does that make me an Unwashed Heathen, or Enemy of the >> People? >> *grin* > It makes you someone with a lot of good reading ahead of you. Most of the Zelazny I have read was over half my life ago. Aside from remembering how much I liked Amber and, specific scenes and events (a pack of Cards thrown after someone falling off a cliff, walking and forging of Patterns, travelling through Shadow, the Guns of Avalon coming into play), most of it is lost to memory. I'm thinking now of paying those volumes another visit. The more I think about it, the more those long-ago read books that are the foundations of my SF/Fantasy perspective are really pretty dim in recollection. Here's the real quandry - do I go back and re-read the things I loved 20 years ago, or do I forge ahead into new (or simply new to me) territory? Here's where being a slow reader does _not_ pay off. Grim Neon Zebra (Noam R. Izenberg) From zarkon at illrepute.org Fri Jan 30 07:07:33 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:07:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Firefly In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Johne Cook wrote: @> Talk about your instant guilty pleasures. Calling it a guilty pleasure assumes there's something wrong with liking it. Firefly is more like a self-righteous pleasure. A pleasure that you should share with every other person in the world, even that one guy on the bus. A guilty pleasure would be something like "Las Vegas,"[0] where you feel ashamed and dirty every time you watch it. [0] Speaking of decent writing on television... From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Fri Jan 30 08:15:47 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:15:47 -0500 Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older In-Reply-To: References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> <17FFFC18-52CF-11D8-96E0-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <002801c3e728$1ed9bc80$d916fea9@ananda> <20040130132340.GC66545@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <20040130161547.GA67033@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 08:46:18AM -0500, Noam Izenberg wrote: > Most of the Zelazny I have read was over half my life ago . . . > . . . Here's the real > quandry - do I go back and re-read the things I loved 20 years ago, or > do I forge ahead into new (or simply new to me) territory? Here's where > being a slow reader does _not_ pay off. IMHO reading Zelazny you have not previously read will be more enjoyable than re-reading the Amber books, even if you've largely forgotten the content of those Amber volumes. IMHO his other work is mostly better than any of the last 8 Amber books. Sales figures indicate that Amber is more *popular*, but in this I freely admit to having better taste than the average mass-market fantasy reader. :-) -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Fri Jan 30 08:19:38 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:19:38 -0500 Subject: Firefly In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040130161938.GB67033@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 10:07:33AM -0500, John Klein wrote: > On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Johne Cook wrote: > @> Talk about your instant guilty pleasures. > > Calling it a guilty pleasure assumes there's something wrong with liking > it. Firefly is more like a self-righteous pleasure . . . I've always referred to such as 'beer money' pleasures. I set aside a part of my time and my money for simple, uncomplicated pleasures such as good pilsners and fun TV shows. Yes, I appreciate and buy good scotch and Gene Wolfe. But sometimes you just want a beer and a football game. Fortunately one a week is plenty. Now, off to the store to buy 'Firefly' and see them all in order. From attjen at gwu.edu Fri Jan 30 08:26:35 2004 From: attjen at gwu.edu (Matthew Jennings) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:26:35 -0500 Subject: Steven's weblog Message-ID: <1bd4b11ba85e.1ba85e1bd4b1@gwu.edu> >That show is, or was, a guilty pleasure of mine. I hate it that the best >writing on TV is always on cop shows. Hate it. Hate hate hate. Ah, another link in my 'degrees of coolness chain theory' is completed. (Now I just need SKZB to get addicted to Orchestra Baobab.)(heheheh...) Great show. I'd agree that it slipped at the end, but would put it after season 5 or 6. Season 7 had some episodes that were just dire. Seasons 1&2, and 3 are on DVD now. ("Crosetti" is still the best single episode of any show I have every seen). Season 4 is out in March sometime. (I've been watching them as they are available through netflix for those of us who are cash-strapped, my wife is now also a fan.) Going now to check if Firefly is available on netflix.... From bio_phy at hotmail.com Fri Jan 30 09:14:42 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:14:42 -0600 Subject: Firefly Message-ID: Ok, agreed. All I really meant by that is the "Western" way of speakin'. Having Western themes is one thing, having western speech patterns is a tad over-the-top. Still, despite that, this is the best Sci-Fi thing I've seen on television since, well, ever. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Johne Cook wrote: > >@> Talk about your instant guilty pleasures. > >Calling it a guilty pleasure assumes there's something wrong with liking >it. Firefly is more like a self-righteous pleasure. A pleasure that you >should share with every other person in the world, even that one guy on >the bus. A guilty pleasure would be something like "Las Vegas,"[0] where >you feel ashamed and dirty every time you watch it. _________________________________________________________________ Find high-speed ?net deals ? comparison-shop your local providers here. https://broadband.msn.com From mam at theworld.com Fri Jan 30 09:24:28 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:24:28 -0500 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: <254BF206-5320-11D8-97E5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: [a truly godsawful pun] DIE! DIE! DIE! Boy, that was a good one. -- Mark A. Mandel From warlord at dragon.com Fri Jan 30 09:41:45 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:41:45 -0500 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: <254BF206-5320-11D8-97E5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Kenneth Gorelick [mailto:pulmon at comcast.net] > Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 7:31 AM > To: Dragaera List > Subject: Awful thought > > > Now that we know that our dreamweaver is a closet devot?e of television > shows, a horrible thought has occurred to me. Not only does he > currently indulge in cop shows, but perhaps he started on less evolved > fare of the sixties, such as "My Favorite Martian" or "My Mother the > Car". > > Now, take this knowledge with Mr. Brust's obvious interest in horror > and fantasy and his hypothetical universe where reincarnation is a > reality, and the future may be revealed. > > After all, we have seen three things in the Dragaeran universe: one may > be incarnated into a form quite different from the original (Dolivar > the Dragon into Vlad the Easterner); Dragaera was settled by humans who > seem to share a common heritage with us, as in Kelly's discovery of > Marxist tracts that revealed to him the truth; and scientific > developments occur (the orb was evolved). > > So, one can imagine Mr. Brust taking us either to an earthly past that > is troublingly like the one in which we live, or a future which, like > ontogeny, has recapitulated phylogeny. > > In this scenario our hero is reincarnated not as an Easterner, not as a > Human, but as a murderous motor vehicle. In this tale, obviously > directed at a future television serious, he will be known as.... > > > > > Vlad, the Impala. > > *claps hands* Well done. :) W "Don't jump to conclusions." "I didn't jump. I took a little step, and there conclusions were. --Buffy From brian.vanskyock at zimmer.com Fri Jan 30 09:47:57 2004 From: brian.vanskyock at zimmer.com (Brian Vanskyock) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:47:57 -0500 Subject: Awful thought References: Message-ID: <401A98CD.1D52149B@zimmer.com> I used to drive an old 1974 Chevy Impala - it was a truly awful brown color although it had a great engine (350) and I paid 400 dollars for it I called it Vlad!!! b Warlord wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Kenneth Gorelick [mailto:pulmon at comcast.net] > > Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 7:31 AM > > To: Dragaera List > > Subject: Awful thought > > > > > > Now that we know that our dreamweaver is a closet devot?e of television > > shows, a horrible thought has occurred to me. Not only does he > > currently indulge in cop shows, but perhaps he started on less evolved > > fare of the sixties, such as "My Favorite Martian" or "My Mother the > > Car". > > > > Now, take this knowledge with Mr. Brust's obvious interest in horror > > and fantasy and his hypothetical universe where reincarnation is a > > reality, and the future may be revealed. > > > > After all, we have seen three things in the Dragaeran universe: one may > > be incarnated into a form quite different from the original (Dolivar > > the Dragon into Vlad the Easterner); Dragaera was settled by humans who > > seem to share a common heritage with us, as in Kelly's discovery of > > Marxist tracts that revealed to him the truth; and scientific > > developments occur (the orb was evolved). > > > > So, one can imagine Mr. Brust taking us either to an earthly past that > > is troublingly like the one in which we live, or a future which, like > > ontogeny, has recapitulated phylogeny. > > > > In this scenario our hero is reincarnated not as an Easterner, not as a > > Human, but as a murderous motor vehicle. In this tale, obviously > > directed at a future television serious, he will be known as.... > > > > > > > > > > Vlad, the Impala. > > > > > > *claps hands* Well done. :) > > W > > "Don't jump to conclusions." > "I didn't jump. I took a little step, and there conclusions were. > --Buffy From rone at ennui.org Fri Jan 30 09:53:09 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:53:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's weblog In-Reply-To: <20040130122944.GC66381@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <20040130175309.4E49B26C2F@boredom.ennui.org> Steve Simmons writes: All three written by the same guy, Josh Whedon. When Buffy was on (sadly, not frequent after the first few seasons) it had dialog to die for. It wasn't THAT bad. It only gave me light nausea. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Jan 30 10:07:47 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:07:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's weblog In-Reply-To: <20040130122944.GC66381@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <000301c3e639$5deca4e0$7a02a8c0@Prophnt2.local> <001b01c3e6db$2fe61520$fe00000a@steve> <001801c3e6f8$9caff140$fe00000a@steve> <4019FA25.6010006@earthlink.net> <001101c3e6fc$1f546ec0$fe00000a@steve> <20040130122944.GC66381@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 10:41:42PM -0800, Steven Brust wrote: > > > That show is, or was, a guilty pleasure of mine. I hate it that the > > > best writing on TV is always on cop shows. Hate it. Hate hate hate. Perhaps that explains something about _Orca_ - a procedural in which a couple of criminals try to solve a case the cops are trying _not_ to solve. From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Fri Jan 30 10:17:12 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:17:12 -0500 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: References: <254BF206-5320-11D8-97E5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040130181712.GB67457@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> From: Kenneth Gorelick [mailto:pulmon at comcast.net] Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 7:31 AM To: Dragaera List Subject: Awful thought . . . > Vlad, the Impala. Bad pun! No donut. Well, maybe in the parking lot. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Fri Jan 30 10:20:45 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:20:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: Awful thought Message-ID: <200401301820.i0UIKjg01917@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Damn. Don't know whether to begin the beatings, or applaud. Decisions, decisions..... Nicely done. :) Chris "Life is the nightmare that leaves its mark upon you in order to prove that it is, in fact, real." -Thomas Ligotti- 'The Sect of the Idiot' > Now that we know that our dreamweaver is a closet devot?e of television > shows, a horrible thought has occurred to me. Not only does he > currently indulge in cop shows, but perhaps he started on less evolved > fare of the sixties, such as "My Favorite Martian" or "My Mother the > Car". > > Now, take this knowledge with Mr. Brust's obvious interest in horror > and fantasy and his hypothetical universe where reincarnation is a > reality, and the future may be revealed. > > After all, we have seen three things in the Dragaeran universe: one may > be incarnated into a form quite different from the original (Dolivar > the Dragon into Vlad the Easterner); Dragaera was settled by humans who > seem to share a common heritage with us, as in Kelly's discovery of > Marxist tracts that revealed to him the truth; and scientific > developments occur (the orb was evolved). > > So, one can imagine Mr. Brust taking us either to an earthly past that > is troublingly like the one in which we live, or a future which, like > ontogeny, has recapitulated phylogeny. > > In this scenario our hero is reincarnated not as an Easterner, not as a > Human, but as a murderous motor vehicle. In this tale, obviously > directed at a future television serious, he will be known as.... > > > > > Vlad, the Impala. > From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Fri Jan 30 10:48:27 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:48:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older In-Reply-To: <20040130161547.GA67033@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <20040130184827.15528.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> --- Steve Simmons wrote: > On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 08:46:18AM -0500, Noam Izenberg wrote: > > > Most of the Zelazny I have read was over half my life ago . . . > > . . . Here's the real > > quandry - do I go back and re-read the things I loved 20 years ago, or > > > do I forge ahead into new (or simply new to me) territory? Here's > where > > being a slow reader does _not_ pay off. > > IMHO reading Zelazny you have not previously read will be more enjoyable > than re-reading the Amber books, even if you've largely forgotten the > content of those Amber volumes. IMHO his other work is mostly better > than any of the last 8 Amber books. Sales figures indicate that Amber > is more *popular*, but in this I freely admit to having better taste > than the average mass-market fantasy reader. :-) I think you misspelled "IMAO". :-) _The Courts of Chaos_ made the whole rest of the Amber series worth while for me. I was glad I put up with all the intrigue and ferric oxide when I got to the scene where Corwin creates *CENSORED* and the one where the *CENSORED* gives the *CENSORED* to *CENSORED*. Of course there was plenty of good stuff along the way. My other Zelazny recommendations: _Lord of Light_, "He Who Shapes". I imagine it's old hat on this list that the first (or "only") five Amber books have the same theme as much of the Vlad books so far: the hero's moral development. I don't know how much longer it can go on (though I'm looking forward to finding out). Will volume 19 have to be titled _The Last Contract of the Saint_? Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From mneme at io.com Fri Jan 30 10:56:50 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:56:50 -0600 Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older In-Reply-To: <20040130184827.15528.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040130161547.GA67033@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> <20040130184827.15528.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <16410.43250.644037.875269@fnord.io.com> Jerry Friedman writes: >_The Courts of Chaos_ made the whole rest of the Amber series worth >while for me. I was glad I put up with all the intrigue and >ferric oxide when I got to the scene where Corwin creates *CENSORED* >and the one where the *CENSORED* gives the *CENSORED* to *CENSORED*. >Of course there was plenty of good stuff along the way. I like Amber a lot, and the first 5 books certainly do things that Zelazny's shorter works cannot, but the better shorter works -are- better written. (the second 5 books are entertaining except when they're frustrating or boring, but the primary thing they did was put Z's kids through college). >My other Zelazny recommendations: _Lord of Light_, "He Who Shapes". "...And call me Conrad" (which I finally read; thanks for the remomendations!), _Creatures of Light and Darkness_, _Isle of the Dead_... >go on (though I'm looking forward to finding out). Will volume 19 >have to be titled _The Last Contract of the Saint_? Nah. It will involve Vlad, having gone past character development to royally screwing up, going back in time to assassinate his earlier self. :) Or it will involve him assassinating a god, probably Verra (hmm...what if the war with the Jenoine is all based on a misunderstanding sponsored by the Demon Goddess, who wants to keep things as they are? Couldn't be. :) -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From zarkon at illrepute.org Fri Jan 30 12:15:03 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:15:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older In-Reply-To: <20040130184827.15528.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040130184827.15528.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: @> My other Zelazny recommendations: _Lord of Light_, "He Who Shapes". "For a Breath I Tarry." Pound for pound, one of his best short stories. @> I imagine it's old hat on this list that the first (or "only") five @> Amber books have the same theme as much of the Vlad books so far: @> the hero's moral development. I don't know how much longer it can @> go on (though I'm looking forward to finding out). Will volume 19 @> have to be titled _The Last Contract of the Saint_? I wonder. Will The Last Contract be last chronologically? From dd-b at dd-b.net Fri Jan 30 12:16:09 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: 30 Jan 2004 14:16:09 -0600 Subject: dragaera.info schedule updated Message-ID: <1075493769.7336.TMDA@dd-b.net> None of the changes show on the front page -- they're not in the next 30 days -- but I've added two scheduled convention appearances by Steven to the dragaera.info website. (Oh, okay; 14-16 May, Opus Con in Denver CO; and 21-23 Jan 2005, Confusion 31 in Michigan.) 30 days probably isn't the right horizon for that; I should probably stretch it out to 4 months or so, at least unless that starts to get too crowded. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From Raellew at aol.com Fri Jan 30 12:32:17 2004 From: Raellew at aol.com (Raellew at aol.com) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:32:17 EST Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older Message-ID: <18d.24efd1f9.2d4c1951@aol.com> In a message dated 1/30/2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: >Will volume 19 have to be titled _The Last Contract of the Saint_? No, that would be Cawti's autobiography. Rae From dd-b at dd-b.net Fri Jan 30 12:34:24 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 14:34:24 -0600 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: <401A98CD.1D52149B@zimmer.com> (Brian Vanskyock's message of "Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:47:57 -0500") References: <401A98CD.1D52149B@zimmer.com> Message-ID: Brian Vanskyock writes: > I used to drive an old 1974 Chevy Impala - it was a truly awful brown color > although it had a great engine (350) and I paid 400 dollars for it > > I called it Vlad!!! Did you get the vanity plate? Several people apparently have in various states. It's one of the very, very, best opportunities. My other favorite is for a Saab; the plate is "story". I did convince a local acquaintance who has a Toyota Prius (hybrid power) to get the vanity plate "YMMV". (I think the idea for that as a vanity plate was originally Lydy's). -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From pulmon at comcast.net Fri Jan 30 13:39:15 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 16:39:15 -0500 Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older In-Reply-To: References: <200401282231.AA384434258@amish2000.com> <17FFFC18-52CF-11D8-96E0-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <002801c3e728$1ed9bc80$d916fea9@ananda> <20040130132340.GC66545@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: There was so much about Zelazny that was great. I loved his throwaway lines--Among my relations I like sex the best and Eric the least...Tokyo Bay with "condums (sic)...limp, semitransparent testaments to the urge to continue the species but not tonight"...His premature demise was a tragedy in many, many ways. Ken On Jan 30, 2004, at 8:46 AM, Noam Izenberg wrote: > On Jan 30, 2004, at 8:23 AM, Steve Simmons wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 06:56:38AM -0500, Timothy Nelson wrote: >>> I have never read any of the Amber series, indeed, none of Mr. >>> Zelazny's >>> work at all. Does that make me an Unwashed Heathen, or Enemy of the >>> People? >>> *grin* >> It makes you someone with a lot of good reading ahead of you. > > Most of the Zelazny I have read was over half my life ago. Aside from > remembering how much I liked Amber and, specific scenes and events (a > pack of Cards thrown after someone falling off a cliff, walking and > forging of Patterns, travelling through Shadow, the Guns of Avalon > coming into play), most of it is lost to memory. I'm thinking now of > paying those volumes another visit. The more I think about it, the > more those long-ago read books that are the foundations of my > SF/Fantasy perspective are really pretty dim in recollection. Here's > the real quandry - do I go back and re-read the things I loved 20 > years ago, or do I forge ahead into new (or simply new to me) > territory? Here's where being a slow reader does _not_ pay off. > > Grim Neon Zebra (Noam R. Izenberg) > From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Fri Jan 30 15:13:05 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:13:05 -0800 Subject: Awful thought References: <254BF206-5320-11D8-97E5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <001d01c3e786$9e95b0b0$6701a8c0@DELL1> Mere words can not convey my horror... Akodo Bob From mam at theworld.com Fri Jan 30 15:27:50 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:27:50 -0500 Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: #There was so much about Zelazny that was great. I loved his throwaway #lines--Among my relations I like sex the best and Eric the #least...Tokyo Bay with "condums (sic)...limp, semitransparent #testaments to the urge to continue the species but not tonight"...His #premature demise was a tragedy in many, many ways. And then there were the absolutely godawful shaggy-dog episodes. I remember two in the Amber series, presented here so as hopefully to remind those who have read them without spoiling the agony awaiting those who have yet to do so: That was when the fit... and There was an old hermit... -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Fri Jan 30 15:32:58 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:32:58 -0500 Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Oh, and who else remembers the pastiche/tribute to him in, was it F&SF?, titled "Call Me Titan"? ... Ah, thank you, Google. It was in Asimov's. To quote from http://www.majipoor.com/shorts/scallmetitan.html: >>> Call Me Titan by Robert Silverberg Index Form: Novelette Year: 1997 Publication history: 1997 : Asimov's February 1997 (m) , 1998 : Lord of the Fantastic: Stories in Honor of Roger Zelazny (pb) , Avon Comments: This novelette appears with a dedication "In Memoriam: RZ" and represents a "conscious effort to use his (Roger Zelazny's) manner and themes." It succeeds brilliantly. It's the story of a mostly-forgotten character from Greek mythology, the Titan called Typhoeus, whose purpose it was to destroy the newcomer Zeus who had taken over Mount Olympus. A volcanic eruption frees the Titan from his mountain prison and he bursts forth into our world to exact his revenge on Zeus. But Zeus is, to say the least, elusive. This story evokes the style and mood of Zelazny's best works (Lord of Light and so on) marvelously. <<< I agree with this evaluation, evidently by Jon Davis, the maintainer of the site, which Silverberg himself calls "the Quasi-Official Robert Silverberg Site" (on the home page, http://www.majipoor.com/home.html). -- Mark M. From mklahn at mac.com Fri Jan 30 15:33:21 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 17:33:21 -0600 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: References: <401A98CD.1D52149B@zimmer.com> Message-ID: On Jan 30, 2004, at 14:34 , David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Did you get the vanity plate? Several people apparently have in > various states. It's one of the very, very, best opportunities. > > My other favorite is for a Saab; the plate is "story". > > I did convince a local acquaintance who has a Toyota Prius (hybrid > power) to get the vanity plate "YMMV". (I think the idea for that as > a vanity plate was originally Lydy's). So, should I give the nod to "E. E. 'Doc' Smith" and get a vanity plate for my Ford Focus of "LENSMAN"? *ducks* -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Fri Jan 30 15:38:21 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 15:38:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older Message-ID: <200401302338.i0UNcLg23010@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Mark A. Mandel wrote: > That was when the fit... Unless I'm very much mistaken, and if this is the line I'm thinking it is, it was in _Lord of Light_. My first thought, when reading it, was "I can't believe he just slid that in and made it fit. I'm impressed!" :) Chris (Trying to not spoil anything...:) "So farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear, Farewell remorse! All good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my Good" - John Milton - 'Paradise Lost' From Hereward at rogers.com Fri Jan 30 16:08:34 2004 From: Hereward at rogers.com (Gary Russell) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 19:08:34 -0500 Subject: Firefly References: Message-ID: <001e01c3e78e$5e57f1e0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Everyone with the 40 beans at hand should grab the Firefly dvd set. It really is excellent stuff, great stories, typical Whedon/Minear snappy dialogue, amusing commentaries. Good stuff all around. I hope that the movie gets made and that helps a relaunch of the series. It really didn't get a fair chance on the small screen the first time around (Friday night death slot, preempted for baseball playoffs during half the run and episode order scrambled by short-sighted FOX execs, including airing the pilot *last*). It deserved much better. GJR ----- Original Message ----- From: "Johne Cook" To: Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:14 PM Subject: Re: Firefly > Ok, agreed. > > All I really meant by that is the "Western" way of speakin'. Having Western > themes is one thing, having western speech patterns is a tad over-the-top. > Still, despite that, this is the best Sci-Fi thing I've seen on television > since, well, ever. > > > johne (phy) cook > wisconsin, usa > > aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ > > "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." > Tom Waits, Mule Variations > > > > >On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Johne Cook wrote: > > > >@> Talk about your instant guilty pleasures. > > > >Calling it a guilty pleasure assumes there's something wrong with liking > >it. Firefly is more like a self-righteous pleasure. A pleasure that you > >should share with every other person in the world, even that one guy on > >the bus. A guilty pleasure would be something like "Las Vegas,"[0] where > >you feel ashamed and dirty every time you watch it. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Find high-speed 'net deals - comparison-shop your local providers here. > https://broadband.msn.com > From azarule at hotmail.com Fri Jan 30 16:09:13 2004 From: azarule at hotmail.com (David Gunderson) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 00:09:13 +0000 Subject: Firefly Message-ID: Definitely - It's worth spending the money if you can. I won't bore everyone with my long treatise on how the Fox network did their best to kill Firefly, but it was pretty bad. The DVD sales have made the movie very likely, and will probably weigh favorably when another network is considering picking the show up again. To their credit, Fox hasn't opposed the sale of the series to another network. Kinda off-topic, but hey, I didn't bring it up ;) --------------------------------------------------------------------- |If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended: you | |have but slumbered here while these visions did appear. And this | |weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream. Gentles, do not | |reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend. | --------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: "Gary Russell" >Reply-To: "Gary Russell" >To: >Subject: Re: Firefly >Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 19:08:34 -0500 > >Everyone with the 40 beans at hand should grab the Firefly dvd set. It >really is excellent stuff, great stories, typical Whedon/Minear snappy >dialogue, amusing commentaries. Good stuff all around. > >I hope that the movie gets made and that helps a relaunch of the series. It >really didn't get a fair chance on the small screen the first time around >(Friday night death slot, preempted for baseball playoffs during half the >run and episode order scrambled by short-sighted FOX execs, including >airing >the pilot *last*). It deserved much better. > >GJR > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Johne Cook" >To: >Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:14 PM >Subject: Re: Firefly > > > > Ok, agreed. > > > > All I really meant by that is the "Western" way of speakin'. Having >Western > > themes is one thing, having western speech patterns is a tad >over-the-top. > > Still, despite that, this is the best Sci-Fi thing I've seen on >television > > since, well, ever. > > > > > > johne (phy) cook > > wisconsin, usa > > > > aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ > > > > "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." > > Tom Waits, Mule Variations > > > > > > > > >On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Johne Cook wrote: > > > > > >@> Talk about your instant guilty pleasures. > > > > > >Calling it a guilty pleasure assumes there's something wrong with >liking > > >it. Firefly is more like a self-righteous pleasure. A pleasure that you > > >should share with every other person in the world, even that one guy on > > >the bus. A guilty pleasure would be something like "Las Vegas,"[0] >where > > >you feel ashamed and dirty every time you watch it. > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Find high-speed 'net deals - comparison-shop your local providers here. > > https://broadband.msn.com > > > _________________________________________________________________ Let the new MSN Premium Internet Software make the most of your high-speed experience. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/prem&ST=1 From pulmon at comcast.net Fri Jan 30 17:16:42 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:16:42 -0500 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: References: <401A98CD.1D52149B@zimmer.com> Message-ID: <21186D08-538B-11D8-90BC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Nah. For a Focus the plate should read "Bofus?" On Jan 30, 2004, at 6:33 PM, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > On Jan 30, 2004, at 14:34 , David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >> Did you get the vanity plate? Several people apparently have in >> various states. It's one of the very, very, best opportunities. >> >> My other favorite is for a Saab; the plate is "story". >> >> I did convince a local acquaintance who has a Toyota Prius (hybrid >> power) to get the vanity plate "YMMV". (I think the idea for that as >> a vanity plate was originally Lydy's). > > So, should I give the nod to "E. E. 'Doc' Smith" and get a vanity > plate for my Ford Focus of "LENSMAN"? > > *ducks* > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > From Gaertk at aol.com Fri Jan 30 17:50:30 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:50:30 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: <2B159EE5.43D9CF6B.00048EA6@aol.com> Jeffrey Kiok writes: [missing attrib] >> First off, the quality of writing, plotting, and >> characterization in Mr. Brust's novels are far superior. > > While I in no way mean to cheapen the quality of Brust's > work, I respectfully disagree. ?I mean to show you that > they are equals, in their own way. ? [...] > who cannot be struck by the beautiful, striking imagery of > Zelazny's work as his characters walk through shadow to a > new place? Me. I've never been impressed by "wierd shit for the sake of wierd shit". And by the second quintet that's all that was left. >?Plot development again is equal. ?I do not wish to spoil > any of the plot for those who do not know the plot, so I > will remain silent on that account except to respectfully > disagree. Either I guessed it before it was reveiled (first half), or it was blatantly made up as he went along with no intention of making sense (second half). >?The character development I think, is covered in the above > sections. Corwin was developed well, and Merlin not too badly, but everyone else seemed to have a new personality each time we meet them. That said, I just recently bought a copy of _A Night in the Lonesome October_ so I'd have my own copy to re-read next October. Now that's a book I'd put on the same level as Brust's (and damned funny too). I haven't read anything else by RZ, though _Lord of Light_ is on my to-read pile. --KG From Gaertk at aol.com Fri Jan 30 17:52:32 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:52:32 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? Message-ID: <498886DE.3EBC4A70.00048EA6@aol.com> David Silberstein writes: >?Since I am never worgn, and never, ever silly, you benefit > from my participation, in that it lends you gravitas and > rectitude, and like that. Now there's a quote for the .sig file :) --KG From mam at theworld.com Fri Jan 30 19:31:36 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 22:31:36 -0500 Subject: The pleasures and quandries of getting older In-Reply-To: <200401302338.i0UNcLg23010@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Chris Olson - SunPS wrote: #Mark A. Mandel wrote: #> That was when the fit... # #Unless I'm very much mistaken, and if this is #the line I'm thinking it is, it was in _Lord of Light_. D'ohhh. Yes, of course it was. I *knew* that. #My first thought, when reading it, was "I can't believe he #just slid that in and made it fit. I'm impressed!" ... And then you realized how far back he'd been setting it up. -- Mark M. From dd-b at dd-b.net Fri Jan 30 21:39:06 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 23:39:06 -0600 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: (Matthew Klahn's message of "Fri, 30 Jan 2004 17:33:21 -0600") References: <401A98CD.1D52149B@zimmer.com> Message-ID: Matthew Klahn writes: > On Jan 30, 2004, at 14:34 , David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >> Did you get the vanity plate? Several people apparently have in >> various states. It's one of the very, very, best opportunities. >> >> My other favorite is for a Saab; the plate is "story". >> >> I did convince a local acquaintance who has a Toyota Prius (hybrid >> power) to get the vanity plate "YMMV". (I think the idea for that as >> a vanity plate was originally Lydy's). > > So, should I give the nod to "E. E. 'Doc' Smith" and get a vanity > plate for my Ford Focus of "LENSMAN"? > > *ducks* Well, any Doc Smith reference tends to be a good choice. But why not live dangerously and get "ZWILNIK" instead? I have the creeping suspicion that I'm missing a particular association for a Ford Focus. *I* think a Focus should probably be either "PINKY" or "BRAIN". -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From davids at kithrup.com Fri Jan 30 22:09:51 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 22:09:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <498886DE.3EBC4A70.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: >David Silberstein writes: > >>?Since I am never worgn, and never, ever silly, you benefit >> from my participation, in that it lends you gravitas and >> rectitude, and like that. > >Now there's a quote for the .sig file :) > Well. If you do in fact use it, please attribute it to "Davdi of Silverrock". ( who is (a) a Hawk, (b), a Paarfi wanna-be, (c) a student of snark-fu, (d) a dedicated pararectal ideator, (e) some fraction of a wit, (f) a Baconian, and (g) several other things as well, some of them unprintable ) Everyone needs at least one amanuensis or alter-ego, and sometimes several are necessary to point fingers at each other, and otherwise spread responsibility, not to mention confusion. From davids at kithrup.com Fri Jan 30 22:10:13 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 22:10:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > >I have the creeping suspicion that I'm missing a particular >association for a Ford Focus. Obviously, "EMERGENT". From davids at kithrup.com Sat Jan 31 00:13:16 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 00:13:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Steve's weblog Message-ID: By the way: I was looking at the weblog entry for Wed Jan 28th, 2004 4:14 PM, and I noticed that some words appeard to be missing. Sure enough, when I looked at the actual HTML code, I saw them: Dear all publishers: Try this: "Dear : We're sending you an advanced copy of . We hope you like it, and hope you feel inspired to give us a quote on it. Sincerely yours." Anything between angle brackets ("<>") gets interpreted as HTML, and if it isn't a valid HTML code, it is simply ignored and not displayed. So "" and "" don't show up on the actual web-page. I also notice, scrolling through the HTML, that there are also invisible "" and "" lines in the entry for Thu Jan 30th, 2003 6:53 PM (I am using a nice code editor that displays invalid HTML tags in red). In order for them to show up properly, "<" must be replaced with "<", and ">" must be replaced with ">". Alternatively, just use square brackets ("[]") or curly brackets ("{}") or parentheses instead of the angle brackets. Does Movable Type (blog software) handle such things better, I wonder? I haven't used it myself, but it seems to the the software of choice for many bloggers. From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Sat Jan 31 08:19:12 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 11:19:12 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <2B159EE5.43D9CF6B.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <2B159EE5.43D9CF6B.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <20040131161912.GB73922@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 08:50:30PM -0500, Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > who cannot be struck by the beautiful, striking imagery of > > Zelazny's work as his characters walk through shadow to a > > new place? > > Me. I've never been impressed by "wierd shit for the sake of > wierd shit". And by the second quintet that's all that was > left. I was incredibly impressed by the first shadow walk. By the fourth book I just skimmed down to where the story started again. There were a couple of reasons for it. The first walk was incredibly detailed, with fun and interesting detailed things along the way. 'We covir the earth' and 'the driver covered me with abuse.' Dino burgers. Interesting things in the back seat. It was long and somewhat difficult journey, and we had a good time riding a long. By book four it became just what you describe, a few paragraphs of wierd shit for the sake of wierd shit. Zelazny was clearly grinding out those paragraphs rather than doing the good work he was capable of. Shadow walks became formulaic, and Zelazny wasn't putting good ingredients into the mix. I probably shouldn't be so harsh on the later Amber books. As was pointed out earlier, 'Courts of Chaos' was actually pretty decent, and the second run had some interesting things like Ghostwheel. And Zelazny had honed his prose style and sensibilities to the point that he couldn't help writing better formulae books than 90% of the formula writers out there. But it was still formula. My presumption is that Zelazny, like Gordy Dickson in his last few years, made a financial decision to do the Amber work for money rather than craft or art. I certianly understand and respect that decision, and as a husband and father I'll even salute it. But it doesn't mean I have to respect the work turned out because of that decision. And I am very pleased that Zelazny still set aside time and effort to write Zelazny books alongside the Amber books. If only Gordy's health and circumstances could have permitted the same, sigh. the other Steve From ljenab at sunflower.com Sat Jan 31 09:31:56 2004 From: ljenab at sunflower.com (Lawrence Jenab) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 11:31:56 -0600 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? References: <2B159EE5.43D9CF6B.00048EA6@aol.com> <20040131161912.GB73922@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <001101c3e820$22bf3660$444f7c18@dell> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Simmons" To: Cc: Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2004 10:19 AM Subject: Re: Amber -> Dragaera? /snip/ > > My presumption is that Zelazny, like Gordy Dickson in his last few > years, made a financial decision to do the Amber work for money rather > than craft or art. I certianly understand and respect that decision, > and as a husband and father I'll even salute it. But it doesn't mean > I have to respect the work turned out because of that decision. And > I am very pleased that Zelazny still set aside time and effort to write > Zelazny books alongside the Amber books. If only Gordy's health and > circumstances could have permitted the same, sigh. > > the other Steve > I get the same feeling. It's the one that hovers (IMO) over Glen Cook's later Garrett novels. For one thing, small plot elements begin to consume more and more pages. You get the feeling the author is mechanically moving the characters from place to place, rather than paring down exposition and description to the minimum necessary to support the hot-potato story he can't wait to get onto the page ("Now I'm going to show you something REALLY cool"). When Zelazney was (again, IMO) really having fun with what he wrote, ideas and developments came thick and fast. In the first novel in each series (Amber and Cook's Garrett books), the author creates and populates an entire alternate universe, plus tells an intense and complicated story within that universe. The later books get longer, and do so without the heavy lifting of world-building. Eventually, rather minor stories take volumes to tell; things drag. Of course, there are a lot of other variables, and this is just my general impression. But in each case, the "drag" of the later volumes had to overcome my entuisiasm for the series; i.e., I tore into the books, eager for more, only to be disappointed. LJ From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Sat Jan 31 10:19:31 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:19:31 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <001101c3e820$22bf3660$444f7c18@dell> References: <2B159EE5.43D9CF6B.00048EA6@aol.com> <20040131161912.GB73922@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> <001101c3e820$22bf3660$444f7c18@dell> Message-ID: <20040131181931.GA77645@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Sat, Jan 31, 2004 at 11:31:56AM -0600, Lawrence Jenab wrote: > I get the same feeling. It's the one that hovers (IMO) over Glen Cook's > later Garrett novels. For one thing, small plot elements begin to consume > more and more pages. You get the feeling the author is mechanically moving > the characters from place to place, rather than paring down exposition and > description to the minimum necessary to support the hot-potato story he > can't wait to get onto the page ("Now I'm going to show you something REALLY > cool"). . . . Exactly so. The early Garrett stories approached 'really cool.' By the sixth or seventh I could look at a recent one and not remember if I'd read it or not. They simply got mechanical. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From dd-b at dd-b.net Sat Jan 31 11:30:22 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 13:30:22 -0600 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: (David Silberstein's message of "Fri, 30 Jan 2004 22:10:13 -0800 (PST)") References: Message-ID: David Silberstein writes: > On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > >> >>I have the creeping suspicion that I'm missing a particular >>association for a Ford Focus. > > Obviously, "EMERGENT". Not in Minnesota, too many letters. But yes, that's a good one in states where you can. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From bonham15 at cox.net Sat Jan 31 14:15:48 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 16:15:48 -0600 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? References: <2B159EE5.43D9CF6B.00048EA6@aol.com> <20040131161912.GB73922@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> <001101c3e820$22bf3660$444f7c18@dell> Message-ID: <000601c3e847$c7b250e0$33856044@user79dn2jmjai> in the case of mr cook, i've very much felt that the 'black company' novels were the ones he enjoyed writing immensely and did the rest to get the heck out of the auto plant. andy > > I get the same feeling. It's the one that hovers (IMO) over Glen Cook's > later Garrett novels. For one thing, small plot elements begin to consume > more and more pages. You get the feeling the author is mechanically moving > the characters from place to place, rather than paring down exposition and > description to the minimum necessary to support the hot-potato story he > can't wait to get onto the page ("Now I'm going to show you something REALLY > cool"). When Zelazney was (again, IMO) really having fun with what he > wrote, ideas and developments came thick and fast. In the first novel in > each series (Amber and Cook's Garrett books), the author creates and > populates an entire alternate universe, plus tells an intense and > complicated story within that universe. The later books get longer, and do > so without the heavy lifting of world-building. Eventually, rather minor > stories take volumes to tell; things drag. > > Of course, there are a lot of other variables, and this is just my general > impression. But in each case, the "drag" of the later volumes had to > overcome my entuisiasm for the series; i.e., I tore into the books, eager > for more, only to be disappointed. > > LJ > > From mr1 at rcosta.com Sun Feb 1 12:18:34 2004 From: mr1 at rcosta.com (Michele) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 15:18:34 -0500 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <20040130131750.GB66545@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <40193FFF.21178.B7202F@localhost> Message-ID: <401D18CA.32093.1EA814@localhost> On 30 Jan 2004 at 8:17, Steve Simmons wrote > > It also makes me wonder if the separateness of the Houses is due to > the Gods and the Orb. In PoTD/etc we see that the Interregnum seems > to have weakened the taboo on cross-breeding. Perhaps Greenaere is > the end result of what long isolation from the Orb will do? Further wondering - did those who live on Greenaere choose to do so because of the black and gold Phoenix stones in an attempt to get away >from the orb? If so why? M mr1 at rcosta.com From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 1 13:48:47 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 13:48:47 -0800 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex In-Reply-To: <401D18CA.32093.1EA814@localhost> References: <40193FFF.21178.B7202F@localhost> <401D18CA.32093.1EA814@localhost> Message-ID: <69F45552-5500-11D8-894D-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> On Feb 1, 2004, at 12:18 PM, Michele wrote: > On 30 Jan 2004 at 8:17, Steve Simmons wrote > >> >> It also makes me wonder if the separateness of the Houses is due to >> the Gods and the Orb. In PoTD/etc we see that the Interregnum seems >> to have weakened the taboo on cross-breeding. Perhaps Greenaere is >> the end result of what long isolation from the Orb will do? > > Further wondering - did those who live on Greenaere choose to do so > because of the black and gold Phoenix stones in an attempt to get away > from the orb? If so why? Correct me if I'm wrong, b/c I can't recall the citation, but don't we learn that the Jenoine somehow bred the animals into dragaeraeans creating the houses each with characteristics of the animal who was their "ancestor". -Jeff From warbi at warbi.net Sun Feb 1 19:16:40 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 19:16:40 -0800 Subject: [stevenbrust] Re: Dzur and Sex Message-ID: <009f01c3e93a$fae39660$3dadfea9@warbi> Yes, I believe in Issola. warbi > > On Feb 1, 2004, at 12:18 PM, Michele wrote: > > > On 30 Jan 2004 at 8:17, Steve Simmons wrote > > > >> > >> It also makes me wonder if the separateness of the Houses is due to > >> the Gods and the Orb. In PoTD/etc we see that the Interregnum seems > >> to have weakened the taboo on cross-breeding. Perhaps Greenaere is > >> the end result of what long isolation from the Orb will do? > > > > Further wondering - did those who live on Greenaere choose to do so > > because of the black and gold Phoenix stones in an attempt to get away > > from the orb? If so why? > > Correct me if I'm wrong, b/c I can't recall the citation, but don't we > learn that the Jenoine somehow bred the animals into dragaeraeans > creating the houses each with characteristics of the animal who was > their "ancestor". > > -Jeff > > > From ijamie at sympatico.ca Mon Feb 2 07:20:44 2004 From: ijamie at sympatico.ca (Ian Jamieson) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 10:20:44 -0500 Subject: Amber -> Dragaera? In-Reply-To: <20040131161912.GB73922@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <20040202152058.XSHV23150.tomts13-srv.bellnexxia.net@Main> > I was incredibly impressed by the first shadow walk. By the fourth > book I just skimmed down to where the story started again. There > were a couple of reasons for it. The first walk was incredibly > detailed, with fun and interesting detailed things along the way. > 'We covir the earth' and 'the driver covered me with abuse.' Dino > burgers. Interesting things in the back seat. It was long and > somewhat difficult journey, and we had a good time riding a long. What struck me as strange about the first shadow walk was how Random could bring Grayswandir (possible misspelling here) from out of nowhere, when later it was a special ability of Brands to obtain specific objects by twisting shadow. I thought the idea was during a shadow walk they could obtain the general, but to obtain the specific you had to go to the place where you knew the specific to be. > I probably shouldn't be so harsh on the later Amber books. As was > pointed out earlier, 'Courts of Chaos' was actually pretty decent, and > the second run had some interesting things like Ghostwheel. And Zelazny > had honed his prose style and sensibilities to the point that he couldn't > help writing better formulae books than 90% of the formula writers out > there. But it was still formula. The second set of books, 'the Merlin books' started out well, but never caught me the way the original series did. > My presumption is that Zelazny, like Gordy Dickson in his last few > years, made a financial decision to do the Amber work for money rather > than craft or art. I certianly understand and respect that decision, > and as a husband and father I'll even salute it. But it doesn't mean > I have to respect the work turned out because of that decision. And > I am very pleased that Zelazny still set aside time and effort to write > Zelazny books alongside the Amber books. If only Gordy's health and > circumstances could have permitted the same, sigh. Some of the trash that was released under RZs name but was never written by him was horrible, 'Mask of LOKI' for example. I hope none of these books were someone's first exposure to RZ. Regards Ian From corwin at mpls.cx Mon Feb 2 08:07:46 2004 From: corwin at mpls.cx (Corwin Brust) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 10:07:46 -0600 Subject: Steve's weblog In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <401E2172.15358.2A0C0E9@localhost> On 31 Jan 2004 at 0:13, David Silberstein wrote: > By the way: > > I was looking at the weblog entry for Wed Jan 28th, 2004 4:14 PM, and > I noticed that some words appeard to be missing. Fixed, thanks. From jda3 at njit.edu Mon Feb 2 10:16:22 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason Axelrod) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 13:16:22 -0500 Subject: Hello, I am New Here. Message-ID: <0HSG00BG9YTZKQ@mta6.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Hello, I just joined this mailing list today and I thought I would bother introducing myself. My name is Jason Axelrod and I am a 20-year-old PC Technician. I never liked reading, I have always avoided reading as much as possible; I didn't do any of the required reading in schools and I didn't read anything for pleasure except the subtitles in Japanese movies. That was until I met someone with the handle "Taltos" and asked him where he got his name from. I bought a copy of "The Book of Jhereg" and since then I can't help myself but I love to read. That was only a year ago and now I've read just about every Dragaeran novel except the most recent Taltos book and The Lord of Castle Black. But don't worry, I will be reading them soon. Steven Brust has inspired for me a love of literature that I've never had in my entire life. My English teachers had always told me that I had a talent for writing, even though I lacked the passion for it. Maybe one day when I am between jobs, I would like to write a book as well. Anyway, I am happy to join up with this community and I hope to partake in many long discussions about Dragaera. I apologize in advance for any subjects that I may bring up and have already been discussed, but you perceive I have only been here for a day and the website archives are massively overwhelming. I do have several questions to ask right off the bat if someone who do me the honor... First of all, does anyone know when Tor is going to release the Omnibus "The Book of Dragon" (Dragon/Issola) or whether they even have plans to do so? Secondly, does anyone know about the existence of Hardcover versions of Tor's Omnibus "The Book of Jhereg/Taltos/Athyra"? Because I have such books, hardcover, but I can actually find no record of these books ever being made in hardcover. In fact, the ISBN code refers to the paperback edition of these books. I have another question, but I seem to have forgotten what it was. Never-the-less, I will take to ask it on another day. - Jason Axelrod From jda3 at njit.edu Mon Feb 2 10:20:56 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason Axelrod) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 13:20:56 -0500 Subject: Hello, I am new here... Message-ID: <0HSG00ADSZ1MLZ@mta7.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Hello, I just joined this mailing list today and I thought I would bother introducing myself. My name is Jason Axelrod and I am a 20-year-old PC Technician. I never liked reading, I have always avoided reading as much as possible; I didn't do any of the required reading in schools and I didn't read anything for pleasure except the subtitles in Japanese movies. That was until I met someone with the handle "Taltos" and asked him where he got his name from. I bought a copy of "The Book of Jhereg" and since then I can't help myself but I love to read. That was only a year ago and now I've read just about every Dragaeran novel except the most recent Taltos book and The Lord of Castle Black. But don't worry, I will be reading them soon. Steven Brust has inspired for me a love of literature that I've never had in my entire life. My English teachers had always told me that I had a talent for writing, even though I lacked the passion for it. Maybe one day when I am between jobs, I would like to write a book as well. Anyway, I am happy to join up with this community and I hope to partake in many long discussions about Dragaera. I apologize in advance for any subjects that I may bring up and have already been discussed, but you perceive I have only been here for a day and the website archives are massively overwhelming. I do have several questions to ask right off the bat if someone who do me the honor... First of all, does anyone know when Tor is going to release the Omnibus "The Book of Dragon" (Dragon/Issola) or whether they even have plans to do so? Secondly, does anyone know about the existence of Hardcover versions of Tor's Omnibus "The Book of Jhereg/Taltos/Athyra"? Because I have such books, hardcover, but I can actually find no record of these books ever being made in hardcover. In fact, the ISBN code refers to the paperback edition of these books. I have another question, but I seem to have forgotten what it was. Never-the-less, I will take to ask it on another day. - Jason Axelrod From jda3 at njit.edu Mon Feb 2 10:26:47 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason Axelrod) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 13:26:47 -0500 Subject: I am new here... Message-ID: <0HSG00BG7ZBBQH@mta6.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Hello, I just joined this mailing list today and I thought I would bother introducing myself. My name is Jason Axelrod and I am a 20-year-old PC Technician. I never liked reading, I have always avoided reading as much as possible; I didn't do any of the required reading in schools and I didn't read anything for pleasure except the subtitles in Japanese movies. That was until I met someone with the handle "Taltos" and asked him where he got his name from. I bought a copy of "The Book of Jhereg" and since then I can't help myself but I love to read. That was only a year ago and now I've read just about every Dragaeran novel except the most recent Taltos book and The Lord of Castle Black. But don't worry, I will be reading them soon. Steven Brust has inspired for me a love of literature that I've never had in my entire life. My English teachers had always told me that I had a talent for writing, even though I lacked the passion for it. Maybe one day when I am between jobs, I would like to write a book as well. Anyway, I am happy to join up with this community and I hope to partake in many long discussions about Dragaera. I apologize in advance for any subjects that I may bring up and have already been discussed, but you perceive I have only been here for a day and the website archives are massively overwhelming. I do have several questions to ask right off the bat if someone who do me the honor... First of all, does anyone know when Tor is going to release the Omnibus "The Book of Dragon" (Dragon/Issola) or whether they even have plans to do so? Secondly, does anyone know about the existence of Hardcover versions of Tor's Omnibus "The Book of Jhereg/Taltos/Athyra"? Because I have such books, hardcover, but I can actually find no record of these books ever being made in hardcover. In fact, the ISBN code refers to the paperback edition of these books. I have another question, but I seem to have forgotten what it was. Never-the-less, I will take to ask it on another day. - Jason Axelrod From jda3 at njit.edu Mon Feb 2 10:35:10 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason Axelrod) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 13:35:10 -0500 Subject: Sorry about the multiple emails Message-ID: <0HSG0018JZP8WM@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Sorry about that, the mailer daemon kept sending me back this response: --- MDaemon has indentified your message as spam. It will not be delivered. >From : dragaera-return-11593-christian.ericsson=publicistbyran.se at dragaera.info To : christian.ericsson at publicistbyran.se Subject : [***SPAM*** Score/Req: 06.80/06.00] Hello, I am new here... Message-ID: <0HSG00ADSZ1MLZ at mta7.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Yes, hits=6.8 required=6.0 tests=FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK,MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME,SUB_HELLO version=2.55 ****** ---- Start SpamAssassin results 6.80 points, 6 required; * 2.7 -- Subject starts with "Hello" * 3.5 -- Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook * 0.6 -- Message looks like Outlook, but isn't ---- End of SpamAssassin results : Message contains [1] file attachments --- The only time it didn't send me this message was when the subject didn't start with "Hello". From brian.vanskyock at zimmer.com Mon Feb 2 10:49:28 2004 From: brian.vanskyock at zimmer.com (Brian Vanskyock) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 13:49:28 -0500 Subject: Awful thought References: <401A98CD.1D52149B@zimmer.com> Message-ID: <401E9BB8.A663F001@zimmer.com> David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Brian Vanskyock writes: > > > I used to drive an old 1974 Chevy Impala - it was a truly awful brown color > > although it had a great engine (350) and I paid 400 dollars for it > > > > I called it Vlad!!! > > Did you get the vanity plate? Several people apparently have in > various states. It's one of the very, very, best opportunities. hope, it would have been rather neat though > > > My other favorite is for a Saab; the plate is "story". > > I did convince a local acquaintance who has a Toyota Prius (hybrid > power) to get the vanity plate "YMMV". (I think the idea for that as > a vanity plate was originally Lydy's). :) > > -- > David Dyer-Bennet, , > RKBA: > Photos: Snapshots: > Dragaera/Steven Brust: From davids at kithrup.com Mon Feb 2 11:08:47 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 11:08:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: <0HSG00BG7ZBBQH@mta6.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Jason Axelrod wrote: > > First of all, does anyone know when Tor is going to release the >Omnibus "The Book of Dragon" (Dragon/Issola) or whether they even >have plans to do so? Secondly, does anyone know about the existence >of Hardcover versions of Tor's Omnibus "The Book of >Jhereg/Taltos/Athyra"? While I am not a representative of Tor Publishing, Inc. (nor do I play one on the web), and indeed, I do not even own the omnibus editions you refer to, I feel compelled to point out that all of the Vlad Taltos novels up until ORCA were all published by Ace Publishing (actually currently an imprint of Penguin Putnam), as indeed were the omnibus editions. Given that DRAGON and ISSOLA were published by Tor, which perhaps has a different notion of how to go about making SKZB's books available, I think the possibility of an omnibus containing them is less than certain. But perhaps PNH, who *is* a representative of Tor Publishing (or at least, is an editor of said establishment) can be induced to comment. I am not sure he is on this list; however, he plays on the web here: http://www.nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/ > Because I have such books, hardcover, but I can actually find no >record of these books ever being made in hardcover. In fact, the ISBN >code refers to the paperback edition of these books. Is it possible that you have library copies? I understand that there is a process (whose exact name I forget [1]) by which paperbacks can be transformed into hardbacks, which is presumably done by library systems so that the books can handle more wear. [1] Google suggests that these websites have more information: http://www.sanval.com/library.asp?loc=lib http://www.vernlib.com/lcover.asp From casey at the-bat.net Mon Feb 2 11:35:40 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 14:35:40 -0500 Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: David Silberstein speculated in response to what...: > > On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Jason Axelrod wrote: > > or whether they even have plans to do so? Secondly, does > > anyone know about the existence of Hardcover versions of > > Tor's Omnibus "The Book of Jhereg/Taltos/Athyra"? Because > > I have such books, hardcover, but I can actually find no > > record of these books ever being made in hardcover. In fact, > > the ISBN code refers to the paperback edition of these books. > > Is it possible that you have library copies? I understand > that there is a process (whose exact name I forget [1]) by > which paperbacks can be transformed into hardbacks, which is > presumably done by library systems so that the books can > handle more wear. Or, even more likely, perhaps they are Book Club editions? Note also that the most recent of the omnibus editions (Athyra) was produced just last year, nearly seven years after the initial publication of Orca. One could entertain notions that Ace timed the release of said editions to reap the benefits of Tor's investment in _Dragon_, _Issola_ and _Viscount_, but that may be reading too much into a smart business decision. Casey From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Feb 2 11:51:08 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 13:51:08 -0600 Subject: Sorry about the multiple emails In-Reply-To: <0HSG0018JZP8WM@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> (Jason Axelrod's message of "Mon, 02 Feb 2004 13:35:10 -0500") References: <0HSG0018JZP8WM@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: Jason Axelrod writes: > Sorry about that, the mailer daemon kept sending me back this response: > > > > --- > > MDaemon has indentified your message as spam. It will not be delivered. > Note the from header; it's the copy sent to a particular list subscriber that bounced. There's no central spam filtering for this list (but only subscribers can post; if a subscriber starts spamming I will speak to Mario about the problem). > >>From : > dragaera-return-11593-christian.ericsson=publicistbyran.se at dragaera.info > > To : christian.ericsson at publicistbyran.se > > Subject : [***SPAM*** Score/Req: 06.80/06.00] Hello, I am new here... > > Message-ID: <0HSG00ADSZ1MLZ at mta7.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > > > > Yes, hits=6.8 required=6.0 > tests=FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK,MISSING_OUTLOOK_NAME,SUB_HELLO version=2.55 > > ****** > > ---- Start SpamAssassin results 6.80 points, 6 required; * 2.7 -- Subject > starts with "Hello" * 3.5 -- Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook * > 0.6 -- Message looks like Outlook, but isn't ---- End of SpamAssassin > results > > > > : Message contains [1] file attachments > > --- > > > > The only time it didn't send me this message was when the subject didn't > start with "Hello". > -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From Gaertk at aol.com Mon Feb 2 11:55:19 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 14:55:19 -0500 Subject: I am new here... Message-ID: <5041A63B.6CEEA640.00048EA6@aol.com> Jason Axelrod writes: >?Hello, I just joined this mailing list today and I thought > I would bother introducing myself. Welcome! >?That was only a year ago and now I've read just about every > Dragaeran novel except the most recent Taltos book and The > Lord of Castle Black. Jason: I'd suggest not reading the mailing list archives, since there are times when people forgot to spoiler protect stuff from the books you haven't read. Also, you may want to unsubscribe at the end of March, since April will bring tons of mails with _Sethra Lavode_ spoilers. BTW, were you aware that _Brokedown Palace_ is also a Dragaera novel? Note to everyone else on the list: Jason hasn't read LOCB nor _Issola_, so remember to spoiler protect those. >?First of all, does anyone know when Tor is going to release > the Omnibus "The Book of Dragon" (Dragon/Issola) or whether > they even have plans to do so? Probably not. Tor has yet to publish any omnibuses of Brust. The _Book of *_ are from Ace, who apparently still holds the rights to the first 7 Vlad novels. That said, the SFBC did publish an omnibus, titled _Dragon and Issola_. If you don't want to join the bookclub, you may be able to find a copy used (I like www.bookfinder.com for finding stuff). > Secondly, does anyone know about the existence of Hardcover > versions of Tor's Omnibus "The Book of > Jhereg/Taltos/Athyra"? Because I have such books, > hardcover, but I can actually find no record of these books > ever being made in hardcover. In fact, the ISBN code refers > to the paperback edition of these books. I'm pretty sure those hardcovers are SFBC editions (they usually don't bother assigning new ISBNs for stuff like that). --KG From mam at theworld.com Mon Feb 2 18:48:10 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 21:48:10 -0500 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: #On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: #>I have the creeping suspicion that I'm missing a particular #>association for a Ford Focus. # #Obviously, "EMERGENT". Yeah! That'll work in New York, but most states don't allow eight-character vanity plates (yet). I saw ETH-OPIA here in Philadelphia; evidently the hyphen, or one hyphen, doesn't count against the limit of seven. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From lister at insaneninjahero.com Mon Feb 2 19:16:50 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 19:16:50 -0800 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <401F12A2.6090600@insaneninjahero.com> Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > > #On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > #>I have the creeping suspicion that I'm missing a particular > #>association for a Ford Focus. > # > #Obviously, "EMERGENT". > > Yeah! That'll work in New York, but most states don't allow > eight-character vanity plates (yet). I saw ETH-OPIA here in > Philadelphia; evidently the hyphen, or one hyphen, doesn't count against > the limit of seven. > > -- Mark A. Mandel > http://cracksandshards.com > a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website > Dunno about Phily or NY, but in NV and UT a little punct does not count. I have a vanity plate, you see, and made the mistake of reading some of the documentation. Well, it was a good nap, anyway. KISC From kstone at email.unc.edu Tue Feb 3 06:40:28 2004 From: kstone at email.unc.edu (Kenneth Coleman Stone) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 09:40:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: Another Newby Message-ID: Greetings all! My name is Ken and I would like to join the discussion. I am 26 years old and I live in North Carolina. I am into knife throwing (thanks to Vlad), digital video editing, knot tying, rock climbing, GPS mapping with a handheld device, caving, rafting, and other outdoor stuff, in addition to my specialty which is Inorganic/ Organometallic Chemistry. You can ask me about those things off the list. I have two dogs (www.unc.edu/~kstone/), and I think Steve can put two words together. I have read all the Dragaera books and pre-ordered SL, so there is nothing off limits for me. Except I would like to read BP someday. I would like to introduce myself by discussing a shard (no spoilers here): Quote from Outlaw Josey Wales: ----------------------------------------------- The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) by Warner Brothers -about 20-30 min into movie Wales: You have any food here? Lone Watie: All I have is a piece of hard rock candy. But it's not fur eatin', it's just fur lookin' through. Wales: Allrighty. The Paths of the Dead (2002) by Steven Brust -page 298 of hardback edition Lady Teldra: No, I'm afraid I do not. Why, have we no food left? Morrolan: Just a piece of hard rock candy. But- Arra: Come then... ------------------------------------------------ Know we know what he was going to say! Ken From bio_phy at hotmail.com Tue Feb 3 07:37:50 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 09:37:50 -0600 Subject: Another Newby Message-ID: Hey, Ken, Nice shard! Are you into geocaching? johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >Greetings all! >My name is Ken and I would like to join the discussion. >I am 26 years old and I live in North Carolina. I am >into knife throwing (thanks to Vlad), digital video >editing, knot tying, rock climbing, GPS mapping with >a handheld device, caving, rafting, and other outdoor >stuff, in addition to my specialty which is Inorganic/ >Organometallic Chemistry. You can ask me about those >things off the list. I have two dogs >(www.unc.edu/~kstone/), and I think Steve can put two >words together. I have read all the Dragaera books and >pre-ordered SL, so there is nothing off limits for me. >Except I would like to read BP someday. I would like >to introduce myself by discussing a shard (no >spoilers here): > >Quote from Outlaw Josey Wales: > >----------------------------------------------- >The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) by Warner Brothers > -about 20-30 min into movie > > Wales: You have any food here? > > Lone Watie: All I have is a piece of hard rock candy. > But it's not fur eatin', it's just fur > lookin' through. > > Wales: Allrighty. > >The Paths of the Dead (2002) by Steven Brust > -page 298 of hardback edition > > Lady Teldra: No, I'm afraid I do not. > Why, have we no food left? > > Morrolan: Just a piece of hard rock candy. > But- > > Arra: Come then... >------------------------------------------------ > >Know we know what he was going to say! > >Ken _________________________________________________________________ Check out the new MSN 9 Dial-up ? fast & reliable Internet access with prime features! http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=dialup/home&ST=1 From jalipaz at stanford.edu Tue Feb 3 08:22:55 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 08:22:55 -0800 Subject: Awful thought In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The plate that made me laugh was on a red corvet "he paid" >On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > >#On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >#>I have the creeping suspicion that I'm missing a particular >#>association for a Ford Focus. ># >#Obviously, "EMERGENT". > >Yeah! That'll work in New York, but most states don't allow >eight-character vanity plates (yet). I saw ETH-OPIA here in >Philadelphia; evidently the hyphen, or one hyphen, doesn't count against >the limit of seven. > >-- Mark A. Mandel > http://cracksandshards.com > a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From Randi128 at aol.com Tue Feb 3 10:32:47 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 13:32:47 EST Subject: Another Newby Message-ID: <36.507720f3.2d51434f@aol.com> In a message dated 02/03/2004 9:41:03 AM Eastern Standard Time, kstone at email.unc.edu writes: > Quote from Outlaw Josey Wales: > > ----------------------------------------------- > The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) by Warner Brothers > -about 20-30 min into movie > > Wales: You have any food here? > > Lone Watie: All I have is a piece of hard rock candy. > But it's not fur eatin', it's just fur > lookin' through. > > Wales: Allrighty. > > The Paths of the Dead (2002) by Steven Brust > -page 298 of hardback edition > > Lady Teldra: No, I'm afraid I do not. > Why, have we no food left? > > Morrolan: Just a piece of hard rock candy. > But- > > Arra: Come then... > ------------------------------------------------ > > Know we know what he was going to say! > > Ken Nice pickup. I have probably seen that movie a hundred times and know that quote well. I never made the connection in PoTD. > I am into knife throwing (thanks to Vlad), digital video >editing, knot tying, rock climbing, GPS mapping with >a handheld device, caving, rafting, and other outdoor >stuff, Whoopee, this is dragaera discussion not the dating game. If your looking for love, your in the wrong place. >in addition to my specialty which is Inorganic/ >Organometallic Chemistry Inorganic and Organometallic chemistry is a welcome addition to the list's plethora of eggheads. John D. Barbato, OD From jda3 at njit.edu Tue Feb 3 10:34:44 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 13:34:44 -0500 Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: <5041A63B.6CEEA640.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <0HSI004A2UBVGV@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Thanks for the welcome and answering my questions. > BTW, were you aware > that _Brokedown Palace_ is also a Dragaera novel? Technically it would be Fenarian. And yes, I do know of it, it took me absolutely forever to find the book since it hasn't been published in over a decade. I haven't read it either, but its on my shelf right now; I am afraid to touch it, it looks like it will crumple the second I touch it like the old books in the original "The Time Machine" movie. - Jason From casey at the-bat.net Tue Feb 3 10:52:04 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 13:52:04 -0500 Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: <0HSI004A2UBVGV@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: Jason wrote: > Technically it would be Fenarian. And yes, I do know of it, > it took me absolutely forever to find the book since it > hasn't been published in over a decade. I haven't read it > either, but its on my shelf right now; I am afraid to touch > it, it looks like it will crumple the second I touch it like > the old books in the original "The Time Machine" movie. Here's to hoping that Tor/Orb will reissue it in trade paper. So far they have reissued _To Reign in Hell_ and _The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars_. From davids at kithrup.com Tue Feb 3 13:02:23 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 13:02:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: >Here's to hoping that Tor/Orb will reissue it in trade paper. So far >they have reissued _To Reign in Hell_ and _The Sun, the Moon, and the >Stars_. > And also, COWBOY FENG'S SPACE BAR AND GRILLE. I see that Tor, after long silence, has updated their website. Their current schedule only goes up to April 2004, though. However, someone posted a list of Tor's schedule which he got by using a script to scrape Amazon's pages, and according to that list, AGYAR will be re-published by Orb in August 2004. Which means that Brokedown Palace, if it comes out at all, will probably not be republished until at least 2005. Oh, well. From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 3 14:55:43 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 17:55:43 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <1890704A-569C-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> I joined this list on June 1, 2003. Since then I have received 3425 emails from the group. This is an average of nearly 14 emails per day. Of these, 65 came from our esteemed auteur, or an average of about 1 every 4 days. Consider yourselves warned. Ken From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Tue Feb 3 15:12:47 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 15:12:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <200402032312.i13NClg19916@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > I joined this list on June 1, 2003. Since then I have received 3425 > emails from the group. This is an average of nearly 14 emails per day. > Of these, 65 came from our esteemed auteur, or an average of about 1 > every 4 days. > > Consider yourselves warned. Of course, one hopes that if Steve isn't posting, he's writing the next Vlad novel--or working on his poker game--in which case one shouldn't mind the four-day lapse....:) And besides, the discourse on this list is usually interesting or amusing, if not both. And we get a chance to discuss the latest in the "Who's Mario"* debate, without that interfering author poking his head out and insisting that *Mario* is Mario. (As if!) *Why am I suddenly reminded of "Where's Waldo"? Hmm... All right, next time I pick up a Brust book, I'm playing "Where's Mario"! Chris (Whose favorite list is this one, followed closely by Strange Aeons) "Life is the nightmare that laves its mark upon you in order to prove that it is, in fact, real." -Thomas Ligotti- 'The Sect of the Idiot' From jtrager at keyway.net Tue Feb 3 15:20:17 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (Trager) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 15:20:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <200402032320.i13NKHQP021306@shrek.keyway.net> Strange Aeons? Is that a Final Fantasy reference there? (FF games being one of the few distractions that can keep me separated >from a new Brust release... or even rereading one of the beloved older ones) > > Chris (Whose favorite list is this one, followed closely > by Strange Aeons) > From davids at kithrup.com Tue Feb 3 15:25:48 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 15:25:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <200402032320.i13NKHQP021306@shrek.keyway.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Trager wrote: >Strange Aeons? Is that a Final Fantasy reference there? Sure sounds like a Lovecraft ref to me... "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange ?ons, even Death may die..." I?! I?! From Hereward at rogers.com Tue Feb 3 15:28:06 2004 From: Hereward at rogers.com (Gary Russell) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 18:28:06 -0500 Subject: I am new here... References: <0HSI004A2UBVGV@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <001d01c3eaad$60d63a40$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Don't feel bad about making those of us with original editions of Brokedown Palace feel old. We'll be just fine. I think I'll go for a walk ... GJR ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod" To: Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 1:34 PM Subject: RE: I am new here... > Thanks for the welcome and answering my questions. > > > BTW, were you aware > > that _Brokedown Palace_ is also a Dragaera novel? > > Technically it would be Fenarian. And yes, I do know of it, it took me > absolutely forever to find the book since it hasn't been published in over a > decade. I haven't read it either, but its on my shelf right now; I am afraid > to touch it, it looks like it will crumple the second I touch it like the > old books in the original "The Time Machine" movie. > > - Jason > > From jtrager at keyway.net Tue Feb 3 15:29:07 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (Trager) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 15:29:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <200402032329.i13NT7Fv029381@shrek.keyway.net> Heh. Shows what I know. > On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Trager wrote: > > >Strange Aeons? Is that a Final Fantasy reference there? > > Sure sounds like a Lovecraft ref to me... > > "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with > strange ?ons, even Death may die..." > > I?! I?! > > > From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Tue Feb 3 15:31:47 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 15:31:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <200402032331.i13NVlg22830@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> > >Strange Aeons? Is that a Final Fantasy reference there? > > Sure sounds like a Lovecraft ref to me... > > "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with > strange ?ons, even Death may die..." > > I?! I?! Damn, beat me to it. Yeah, that'd be the one. Thanks! Chris Cthulhu in 2004! Why vote for the lesser evil? "So farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear, Farewell remorse! All good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my Good" - John Milton - 'Paradise Lost' From jda3 at njit.edu Tue Feb 3 15:34:22 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:34:22 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <1890704A-569C-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <0HSJ00DAG84HSK@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was using Usenet or NNTP serives. -----Original Message----- From: Kenneth Gorelick [mailto:pulmon at comcast.net] Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 5:56 PM To: Dragaera List Subject: warning to newbies I joined this list on June 1, 2003. Since then I have received 3425 emails from the group. This is an average of nearly 14 emails per day. Of these, 65 came from our esteemed auteur, or an average of about 1 every 4 days. Consider yourselves warned. Ken From lister at insaneninjahero.com Tue Feb 3 15:38:07 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 15:38:07 -0800 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <200402032312.i13NClg19916@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> References: <200402032312.i13NClg19916@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Message-ID: <402030DF.5000004@insaneninjahero.com> On the other hand, you have the little Yahoo group I created for David Drake fans, where, up until today, all we did was someone would make some clever remark about Mr. Drake's work, and there would be a round of "yeah, me too"'s. Like I said: Our Brain In Not A Chew-Toy, Mr. Brust :) Derrill Chris Olson - SunPS wrote: > Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > >>I joined this list on June 1, 2003. Since then I have received 3425 >>emails from the group. This is an average of nearly 14 emails per day. >>Of these, 65 came from our esteemed auteur, or an average of about 1 >>every 4 days. >> >>Consider yourselves warned. > > > Of course, one hopes that if Steve isn't posting, > he's writing the next Vlad novel--or working > on his poker game--in which case one shouldn't > mind the four-day lapse....:) > > And besides, the discourse on this list is usually > interesting or amusing, if not both. And we get > a chance to discuss the latest in the "Who's Mario"* > debate, without that interfering author poking his > head out and insisting that *Mario* is Mario. (As if!) > > *Why am I suddenly reminded of "Where's Waldo"? Hmm... > All right, next time I pick up a Brust book, I'm playing > "Where's Mario"! > > > Chris (Whose favorite list is this one, followed closely > by Strange Aeons) > > "Life is the nightmare that laves its mark upon you > in order to prove that it is, in fact, real." > -Thomas Ligotti- 'The Sect of the Idiot' > > > From ehahn at isochronism.com Tue Feb 3 16:47:33 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 19:47:33 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <0HSJ00DAG84HSK@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <0HSJ00DAG84HSK@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On 3 Feb 2004, at 6:34 PM, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, He's a witch! Burn him!! ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From ehahn at isochronism.com Tue Feb 3 16:48:25 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 19:48:25 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <402030DF.5000004@insaneninjahero.com> References: <200402032312.i13NClg19916@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> <402030DF.5000004@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: On 3 Feb 2004, at 6:38 PM, Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert wrote: > Like I said: Our Brain In Not A Chew-Toy, Mr. Brust :) Well, at least *most* of our brains... ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From mak at akamai.com Tue Feb 3 16:52:01 2004 From: mak at akamai.com (Kagan, Marty) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 16:52:01 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> I'm half-way through Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, and I'm struck by the similarity between the implicit agreement made between humans and wolves in 10,000 BC which led to their domestication, and the explicit agreement made between Vlad and Loish's mother (and later, between Vlad and Rocza), ie: help me hunt, in exchange for long life & easy meat. No big surprise there, but it's not often one is struck by the thought, "hey, this reminds me of Brust" while reading dense history texts. Which led me to wonder: Has anyone else in Dragaeran history ever attempted to domesticate wild jhereg? Is the natural lifespan of wild jhereg on a (I'll avoid the word "human" here for the sake of clarity) Dragaeran-scale, or a Fenarian-scale? Assuming the later, shouldn't one expect to see, over the next couple of reigns, a similar pattern of selective breeding and "artifical selection"? By the time the next Cycle comes around, will there be the jhereg equivalents of Dachshunds, Poodles, and Weimaraners running around? marty From jalipaz at stanford.edu Tue Feb 3 16:56:55 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 16:56:55 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> Message-ID: your very first problem is that you are reading something written by Jared Diamond. keep the salt shaker handy. >I'm half-way through Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by >Jared Diamond, and I'm struck by the similarity between the implicit >agreement made between humans and wolves in 10,000 BC which led to their >domestication, and the explicit agreement made between Vlad and Loish's >mother (and later, between Vlad and Rocza), ie: help me hunt, in exchange >for long life & easy meat. No big surprise there, but it's not often one is >struck by the thought, "hey, this reminds me of Brust" while reading dense >history texts. > >Which led me to wonder: Has anyone else in Dragaeran history ever attempted >to domesticate wild jhereg? Is the natural lifespan of wild jhereg on a >(I'll avoid the word "human" here for the sake of clarity) Dragaeran-scale, >or a Fenarian-scale? Assuming the later, shouldn't one expect to see, over >the next couple of reigns, a similar pattern of selective breeding and >"artifical selection"? By the time the next Cycle comes around, will there >be the jhereg equivalents of Dachshunds, Poodles, and Weimaraners running >around? > >marty From TimN at rcn.com Tue Feb 3 17:19:40 2004 From: TimN at rcn.com (Timothy Nelson) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 20:19:40 -0500 Subject: Feng! References: Message-ID: <005101c3eabc$f728bfe0$d916fea9@ananda> Cowboy Feng's is easily my favorite Brust novel. ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Silberstein" To: "Dragaera List" Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 4:02 PM Subject: RE: I am new here... > And also, COWBOY FENG'S SPACE BAR AND GRILLE. > From davids at kithrup.com Tue Feb 3 17:47:47 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 17:47:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: >your very first problem is that you are reading something written by >Jared Diamond. keep the salt shaker handy. > Unpack? From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 3 18:09:11 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:09:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: > your very first problem is that you are reading something written by > Jared Diamond. keep the salt shaker handy. Do you have substantive disagreements with him? I found Guns etc. to be rather long-winded and repetitive but otherwise brilliant, and it seemed like scholarly speculation in the best tradition; I can't off-hand remember anything about The Third Chimpanzee. > >I'm half-way through Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by > >Jared Diamond... From gomi at pollywog.com Tue Feb 3 18:15:49 2004 From: gomi at pollywog.com (Paul Echeverri) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:15:49 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 17:47:47 -0800 (PST), David Silberstein wrote: > On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: > >> your very first problem is that you are reading something written by >> Jared Diamond. keep the salt shaker handy. >> > > Unpack? Diamond's not Bellesiles, but he's in the right time zone. pe From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 3 18:29:15 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Paul Echeverri wrote: > On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 17:47:47 -0800 (PST), David Silberstein > wrote: > > > On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Julie Alipaz wrote: > > > >> your very first problem is that you are reading something written by > >> Jared Diamond. keep the salt shaker handy. > > > > Unpack? > > Diamond's not Bellesiles, but he's in the right time zone. For those not keeping score, Bellesiles is a discredited historian of gun issues in early America - sort of the left-wing version of John Lott. This is the first I'd heard of non-ideological disagreements with Diamond - is there something peer-reviewed I could check out? ps - "Echeverri" has a cool linguistic story, right? - maybe Basque? From kstone at email.unc.edu Tue Feb 3 18:30:52 2004 From: kstone at email.unc.edu (Kenneth Coleman Stone) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 21:30:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Kagan, Marty wrote: > > I'm half-way through Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by > Jared Diamond, and I'm struck by the similarity between the implicit > agreement made between humans and wolves in 10,000 BC which led to their > domestication, and the explicit agreement made between Vlad and Loish's > mother (and later, between Vlad and Rocza), ie: help me hunt, in exchange > for long life & easy meat. No big surprise there, but it's not often one is > struck by the thought, "hey, this reminds me of Brust" while reading dense > history texts. > > Which led me to wonder: Has anyone else in Dragaeran history ever attempted > to domesticate wild jhereg? Is the natural lifespan of wild jhereg on a > (I'll avoid the word "human" here for the sake of clarity) Dragaeran-scale, > or a Fenarian-scale? Assuming the later, shouldn't one expect to see, over > the next couple of reigns, a similar pattern of selective breeding and > "artifical selection"? By the time the next Cycle comes around, will there > be the jhereg equivalents of Dachshunds, Poodles, and Weimaraners running > around? > > marty > Considering that Vlad plucked from the wild, and we don't see many (if anyone) domesticating wild jhereg, and that we don't have Dachshund Fenarians, and that the land doesn't change all that much, I am guessing no on that one. Maybe out east. However, there are different sizes: -Deathgate Falls has giant jhereg -Aren't the city jhereg of a different size (smaller?) than the jungle jhereg? But based on Looish's reaction to the giant jhereg, they don't often get romantically involved :-) Ken From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 3 18:40:52 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:40:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Kagan, Marty wrote: > > I'm half-way through Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by > Jared Diamond, and I'm struck by the similarity between the implicit > agreement made between humans and wolves in 10,000 BC which led to their > domestication, and the explicit agreement made between Vlad and Loish's > mother (and later, between Vlad and Rocza), ie: help me hunt, in exchange > for long life & easy meat. No big surprise there, but it's not often one is > struck by the thought, "hey, this reminds me of Brust" while reading dense > history texts. > > Which led me to wonder: Has anyone else in Dragaeran history ever attempted > to domesticate wild jhereg? Is the natural lifespan of wild jhereg on a > (I'll avoid the word "human" here for the sake of clarity) Dragaeran-scale, > or a Fenarian-scale? Assuming the later, shouldn't one expect to see, over > the next couple of reigns, a similar pattern of selective breeding and > "artifical selection"? By the time the next Cycle comes around, will there > be the jhereg equivalents of Dachshunds, Poodles, and Weimaraners running > around? The wild jhereg are intelligent. They can't be domesticated. They can be bargained with or enslaved. I think they would find the idea of being turned into poodles repulsive. From gomi at pollywog.com Tue Feb 3 18:42:58 2004 From: gomi at pollywog.com (Paul Echeverri) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:42:58 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST), Philip Hart wrote: > For those not keeping score, Bellesiles is a discredited historian of > gun issues in early America - sort of the left-wing version of John Lott. That sort of implies you believe Lott's been discredited, which I hardly think is the case, certainly nowhere near the scale of Bellesille's widespread fraud. > This is the first I'd heard of non-ideological disagreements with Diamond > - is there something peer-reviewed I could check out? Not that I can think of offhand, but he lost me in the foreword with his Noble, Smarter than Us White People, Savages bit. > ps - "Echeverri" has a cool linguistic story, right? - maybe Basque? Give the man a cigar. pe From davids at kithrup.com Tue Feb 3 19:00:44 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 19:00:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Paul Echeverri wrote: >On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST), Philip Hart > wrote: > >> This is the first I'd heard of non-ideological disagreements with >> Diamond - is there something peer-reviewed I could check out? > >Not that I can think of offhand, but he lost me in the foreword with >his Noble, Smarter than Us White People, Savages bit. You make it sound like you didn't read past the foreword. Did you? He didn't go out of his way to make the savages "noble"; indeed, he suggests that their interminable tribal warfare was halted specifically because of the arrival of civilized colonizers. And as for "smarter" - I thnk he's just stressing that they have a powerful knowledge of their local environment; plants and animals that are good to eat, and those that are hazardous. He does *suggest* smarter, and I would argue with him on using that specific terminology. An individual of the civilized world also has to keep track of thonsands of little details as well; it's just that fewer of them are directly related to finding food. Of course, most persons dropped into the savages environment would be in deep trouble unless given specific training on how to survive; so too would a savage be in trouble if dropped into civilization - but perhaps less likely to starve to death or die of poisoning. Perhaps. >> ps - "Echeverri" has a cool linguistic story, right? - maybe Basque? > >Give the man a cigar. > Are you also "circadian rhyme"? There also this post in the logs, and I find it unlikely that there are 2 Basque fans of Brust. But perhaps you are related. http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/7046 From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 3 19:03:00 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 19:03:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Paul Echeverri wrote: > On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST), Philip Hart > wrote: > > > For those not keeping score, Bellesiles is a discredited historian of > > gun issues in early America - sort of the left-wing version of John Lott. > > That sort of implies you believe Lott's been discredited, which I hardly > think is the case, certainly nowhere near the scale of Bellesille's > widespread fraud. It depends on how you feel about Lott apparently making up data, coding with what seems like fraudulent intent, and anoymously or under a false name praising himself on blogs and amazon.com (v. http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/lott98update.html). Eugene Volokh recently dropped Lott. I recently saw that Bellesiles is still getting peer-reviewed publication (which seems like a receipe for disaster) - I don't know if Lott can say as much. > > This is the first I'd heard of non-ideological disagreements with Diamond > > - is there something peer-reviewed I could check out? > > Not that I can think of offhand, but he lost me in the foreword with his > Noble, Smarter than Us White People, Savages bit. I totally didn't get that - he's an ethnologist and has some interest in arguing that stone-age people in New Guinea, the Amazon, etc. are innately as smart as us and are sophisticated in their knowledge of their environment. After all, the thesis that "the West conquered the world because us White folks are just plain superior" is still popular. Incidentally, I don't want to get into an argument about the Flynn effect, but I've read that a result of our recent evolution during civilization is a shrinking of the average brain size, perhaps in order to make us less agressively "adult" and hence better village- dwellers - i.e., we've domesticated ourselves from wolves to golden retrievers. > > ps - "Echeverri" has a cool linguistic story, right? - maybe Basque? > > Give the man a cigar. Thanks, but can I have a cheese steak or a shot of bourbon instead? From gomi at pollywog.com Tue Feb 3 19:09:09 2004 From: gomi at pollywog.com (Paul Echeverri) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 19:09:09 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004 19:00:44 -0800 (PST), David Silberstein wrote: > Are you also "circadian rhyme"? There also this post in the logs, and > I find it unlikely that there are 2 Basque fans of Brust. But perhaps > you are related. You are thinking of Older Brother Rone, who is spine-tinglingly different along many major personality axes. We're an irresistible one-two punch of confusing Basque sexitude! Your women are not safe. pe From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 3 19:13:58 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 19:13:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Paul Echeverri wrote: > We're an irresistible one-two punch of confusing Basque sexitude! This list (about Hungarian mythology) could use more Basque sexitude. From bio_phy at hotmail.com Tue Feb 3 19:21:44 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 21:21:44 -0600 Subject: Feng! Message-ID: I just picked that up again this summer. Read it through on two very pleasant summer evenings. My fave is either _The Phoenix Guards_ or _Five Hundred Years After_, depending on the day. _The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars_ is right up there, too. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa >Cowboy Feng's is easily my favorite Brust novel. _________________________________________________________________ Scope out the new MSN Plus Internet Software ? optimizes dial-up to the max! http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/plus&ST=1 From kstone at email.unc.edu Tue Feb 3 19:24:45 2004 From: kstone at email.unc.edu (Kenneth Coleman Stone) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 22:24:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Paul Echeverri wrote: > > > On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST), Philip Hart > > wrote: > > > > > For those not keeping score, Bellesiles is a discredited historian of > > > gun issues in early America - sort of the left-wing version of John Lott. > > > > That sort of implies you believe Lott's been discredited, which I hardly > > think is the case, certainly nowhere near the scale of Bellesille's > > widespread fraud. > > It depends on how you feel about Lott apparently making up data, coding > with what seems like fraudulent intent, and anoymously or under a false > name praising himself on blogs and amazon.com (v. > http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/lott98update.html). Eugene > Volokh recently dropped Lott. I recently saw that Bellesiles is still > getting peer-reviewed publication (which seems like a receipe for > disaster) - I don't know if Lott can say as much. > > > > > This is the first I'd heard of non-ideological disagreements with Diamond > > > - is there something peer-reviewed I could check out? > > > > Not that I can think of offhand, but he lost me in the foreword with his > > Noble, Smarter than Us White People, Savages bit. > > I totally didn't get that - he's an ethnologist and has some interest in > arguing that stone-age people in New Guinea, the Amazon, etc. are innately > as smart as us and are sophisticated in their knowledge of their > environment. After all, the thesis that "the West conquered the world > because us White folks are just plain superior" is still popular. > > Incidentally, I don't want to get into an argument about the Flynn effect, > but I've read that a result of our recent evolution during civilization is > a shrinking of the average brain size, perhaps in order to make us less > agressively "adult" and hence better village- dwellers - i.e., we've > domesticated ourselves from wolves to golden retrievers. > > > > > ps - "Echeverri" has a cool linguistic story, right? - maybe Basque? > > > > Give the man a cigar. > > Thanks, but can I have a cheese steak or a shot of bourbon instead? > This thread covers fraud, evolution, civilization, cigars, cheese steaks, and bourbon, which are intimately related to reading about Dragaera (particulary bourbon). But I wonder if the stat-guy (sorry, deleted that one) has been keeping tabs on the percentage of posts that are on topic? Maybe I'm just jealous because only Lott's name rings a bell... Ken From jda3 at njit.edu Tue Feb 3 19:31:38 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2004 22:31:38 -0500 Subject: Feng! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0HSJ00HQGJ4SN7@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> I never read CFSBG >From what I've read, so far Five Hundred Years After is my favorite. From ivanrebollo at hotmail.com Tue Feb 3 23:59:31 2004 From: ivanrebollo at hotmail.com (=?iso-8859-1?B?SXbhbiBSZWJvbGxv?=) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 07:59:31 +0000 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: Chris Olson wrote: >And we get a chance to discuss the latest in the "Who's Mario"* >debate, without that interfering author poking his >head out and insisting that *Mario* is Mario. (As if!) I thought it was stated that Mario is Mark A. Mendel, isn't it? _________________________________________________________________ Una mejor experiencia en Internet. Prueba gratis dos meses MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=es-es&XAPID=1577&DI=1055&HL=TAGExternalPrueba2mesesgratis From zarkon at illrepute.org Wed Feb 4 05:53:54 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 08:53:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <0HSJ00DAG84HSK@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <0HSJ00DAG84HSK@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: @> Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails @> automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was using Usenet @> or NNTP serives. Yeah, I do something like that too, except with Pine. Heh. Outlook. From zarkon at illrepute.org Wed Feb 4 05:54:00 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 08:54:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Feng! In-Reply-To: <005101c3eabc$f728bfe0$d916fea9@ananda> References: <005101c3eabc$f728bfe0$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Timothy Nelson wrote: @> Cowboy Feng's is easily my favorite Brust novel. And here I thought I was the only one. From mklahn at mac.com Wed Feb 4 06:29:50 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 08:29:50 -0600 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9747A456-571E-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Feb 3, 2004, at 21:00 , David Silberstein wrote: > On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Paul Echeverri wrote: > >> On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST), Philip Hart >> wrote: >>> ps - "Echeverri" has a cool linguistic story, right? - maybe Basque? >> >> Give the man a cigar. >> My wife's maiden-name is Chavarr?a (which she kept as a hypenation, making her's the longest name I've run across since some Greek names like Eleftoloperous: Chavarr?a-Klahn), and her father is Bolivian. BUT, apparently is less common than either Echeverri, Echeverria, etc, since she will frequently tell people her name (well, she's a Linguistics grad student, so this is probably not a normal sample of people) and they tend to say, "Echeverria?". -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From mklahn at mac.com Wed Feb 4 06:41:32 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 08:41:32 -0600 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <399C49F6-5720-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> And, now a post that is actually on topic: While I don't have any text references available, it seems that we might not be able to use Loiosh in any life-span calculations of jhereg, since it appears that Ambrus the cat has been Noish-pa's familiar for as long as Vlad can remember, which appears to be longer than the normal life-span of a domesticated cat. My impression of that was always that witches can extend their own lives, and also the lives of their familiars through heavy drug use, er, herbal supplementation. Yeah, vitamins, that's it. And, while I don't recall seeing any dogs (assuming that Lyorn are a different species than dogs) mentioned in any of the Dragaeran novels, I can't remember if there were any in _Brokedown Palace_, or if I'm just mixing up the taltos horse and Huan the hound of Valinor? -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Feb 4 06:58:23 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 06:58:23 -0800 Subject: Feng! In-Reply-To: References: <005101c3eabc$f728bfe0$d916fea9@ananda> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 08:54:00 -0500 (EST), you wrote: >On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Timothy Nelson wrote: > >@> Cowboy Feng's is easily my favorite Brust novel. > >And here I thought I was the only one. Not my favourite, but easily one of my favourites. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From dr.elmo at whiterose.org Wed Feb 4 06:55:43 2004 From: dr.elmo at whiterose.org (Greg Morrow) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 08:55:43 -0600 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040204084046.0222d800@mail.whiterose.org> Philip Hart wondered aloud to the group: >Incidentally, I don't want to get into an argument about the Flynn effect, >but I've read that a result of our recent evolution during civilization is >a shrinking of the average brain size, perhaps in order to make us less >agressively "adult" and hence better village- dwellers - i.e., we've >domesticated ourselves from wolves to golden retrievers. This is consistent with the general observation that domestication makes a species less robust--dogs are generally smaller and weaker than wolves, cows are much smaller and weaker than aurochs, modern humans are smaller and weaker than pre-neolithic H. sapiens. We tested domestication on ourselves first before applying it to other species, in the reverse of the usual order 8) Regarding our relative "adulthood", I was under the impression that humans were in general quite neotenous (youth-like) compared to other apes, and that one likely consequence and/or driving force was that being relatively younger in physiology gave us more access to physiological characteristics associated with youth, in particular, rate of brain growth. Being relatively youth-like may contribute to our having bigger brains. So smaller brains would, in that sense, imply that the species was being more "adult", not less. Of course, I'm mostly parroting old Stephen Jay Gould essays here, so probably the state of the science is difference. As for Dragaera, you can tell that Brust is interested in writing fantasy rather than science fiction, because, even though he's given his world an inherently science-fictional origin (genetic experimentation by aliens), he's barely interested in the obvious derivative science-fictional questions, e.g. rate of Dragaeran reproduction, jhereg society (unlike, say, Weber's treecats, or the fuzzies of Piper than they derive from), or the ways the Necromancer thinks as well as or better than a human, but not like a human (Campbell's formulation of alien intelligence). Instead, that narrative energy shows up as fantasy elements--swords, sorcery, and the gods. So we can ask all sorts of intelligent questions using science to probe the nature of Dragaera, and the answers won't be forthcoming, or, at least, won't particularly matter 8) -- "It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties." --James Madison mailto:Dr.Elmo at whiterose.org http://www.whiterose.org/dr.elmo/blog/ From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Feb 4 06:59:09 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 06:59:09 -0800 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: References: <0HSJ00DAG84HSK@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <452220he8v6vng0oalqnqbpuf5p1nbi4on@4ax.com> On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 08:53:54 -0500 (EST), you wrote: >On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > >@> Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails >@> automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was using Usenet >@> or NNTP serives. > >Yeah, I do something like that too, except with Pine. > >Heh. Outlook. Same thing here, with Agent. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From adia at noc.uoa.gr Wed Feb 4 07:39:12 2004 From: adia at noc.uoa.gr (Alexandros Diamantidis) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 17:39:12 +0200 Subject: Last names (was: Re: domesticated animals) In-Reply-To: <9747A456-571E-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <9747A456-571E-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <20040204153912.GC36725@noc.uoa.gr> * Matthew Klahn [2004-02-04 08:29]: > [...] the longest name I've run across since some Greek names > like Eleftoloperous [...] That's probably Eleftheropoulos, meaning "son of Eleutherios", where "eleutheria" means "freedom" and "poulos" is, I think, derived from Latin. There are many modern greek last names like this, and some are even longer (e.g. Papadimitrakopoulos, Chatzikonstantinidis, etc.). ObDragaera: I don't recall any greek Easterner names... -- Alexandros Diamantidis * adia at noc.uoa.gr From lister at insaneninjahero.com Wed Feb 4 07:42:35 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 07:42:35 -0800 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <452220he8v6vng0oalqnqbpuf5p1nbi4on@4ax.com> References: <0HSJ00DAG84HSK@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <452220he8v6vng0oalqnqbpuf5p1nbi4on@4ax.com> Message-ID: <402112EB.8030003@insaneninjahero.com> lazarus wrote: > On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 08:53:54 -0500 (EST), you wrote: > > >>On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: >> >>@> Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails >>@> automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was using Usenet >>@> or NNTP serives. >> >>Yeah, I do something like that too, except with Pine. >> >>Heh. Outlook. > > > Same thing here, with Agent. > > Thunderbird for me. I have OE set up for use with troubleshooting. Thunderbird is too robust and too beta to give to users. I couldn't imagine letting them near Agent or *shudder* Pine. *shiver* I've used Outlook in the past, and it runs on this machine ... probably ... Kisc From lister at insaneninjahero.com Wed Feb 4 07:45:08 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 07:45:08 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <9747A456-571E-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <9747A456-571E-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <40211384.3080307@insaneninjahero.com> Matthew Klahn wrote: > > On Feb 3, 2004, at 21:00 , David Silberstein wrote: > >> On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Paul Echeverri wrote: >> >>> On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST), Philip Hart >>> wrote: >>> >>>> ps - "Echeverri" has a cool linguistic story, right? - maybe Basque? >>> >>> >>> Give the man a cigar. >>> > > My wife's maiden-name is Chavarr?a (which she kept as a hypenation, > making her's the longest name I've run across since some Greek names > like Eleftoloperous: Chavarr?a-Klahn), and her father is Bolivian. BUT, > apparently is less common than either Echeverri, Echeverria, etc, since > she will frequently tell people her name (well, she's a Linguistics grad > student, so this is probably not a normal sample of people) and they > tend to say, "Echeverria?". > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > I live in Winnemucca NV, which is apparently known occasionally as "Basque-town" ... all the old money is Basque, I think the original settlers were Basque, that sort of thing. Instead of being a Mason, to get ahead in WMCA you have to be Basque ;) There are lots of Echeverria's here, no other variations on that name that I'm aware of, so yeah, I'd say that sans-e is less common ... generalizing from a sample of one. Kisc From mklahn at mac.com Wed Feb 4 07:54:21 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 09:54:21 -0600 Subject: Last names (was: Re: domesticated animals) In-Reply-To: <20040204153912.GC36725@noc.uoa.gr> References: <9747A456-571E-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> <20040204153912.GC36725@noc.uoa.gr> Message-ID: <657B4BB6-572A-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Feb 4, 2004, at 9:39 , Alexandros Diamantidis wrote: > * Matthew Klahn [2004-02-04 08:29]: >> [...] the longest name I've run across since some Greek names >> like Eleftoloperous [...] > > That's probably Eleftheropoulos, meaning "son of Eleutherios", where > "eleutheria" means "freedom" and "poulos" is, I think, derived from > Latin. There are many modern greek last names like this, and some are > even longer (e.g. Papadimitrakopoulos, Chatzikonstantinidis, etc.). > > ObDragaera: I don't recall any greek Easterner names... > > -- > Alexandros Diamantidis * adia at noc.uoa.gr Ah, you are correct, sir. It was Eleftheropoulos! I couldn't remember (this was some 10 years ago, when I was a lad) exactly, and google is no help if you're not even close. Thanks! -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From zarkon at illrepute.org Wed Feb 4 08:01:19 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 11:01:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <402112EB.8030003@insaneninjahero.com> References: <0HSJ00DAG84HSK@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <452220he8v6vng0oalqnqbpuf5p1nbi4on@4ax.com> <402112EB.8030003@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert wrote: @> >>@> Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails @> >>@> automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was using Usenet @> >>@> or NNTP serives. @> >> @> >>Yeah, I do something like that too, except with Pine. @> >> @> >>Heh. Outlook. @> > @> > Same thing here, with Agent. @> > @> @> Thunderbird for me. I have OE set up for use with troubleshooting. @> Thunderbird is too robust and too beta to give to users. I couldn't @> imagine letting them near Agent or *shudder* Pine. *shiver* Eh? These are people that can read, right? Oh, wait. You did say "users"... From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Wed Feb 4 08:50:56 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 08:50:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Feng! In-Reply-To: <0HSJ00HQGJ4SN7@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20040204165056.99581.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > I never read CFSBG ... To me, it's probably SKZB's most moving book. _Athyra_ might be in the same league. However (I'm not going to give anything away, but the criticism I'm going to make could conceivably lessen your enjoyment of _Cowboy Feng_, and if anyone wants to argue with me, they may find spoiler space useful), . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...I couldn't understand why the bad guys acted the way they did. This is connected to the Cool Stuff Theory: what is Uncool Stuff, and how much does it vitiate Cool Stuff? My answer is that I've reread CFSB&G several times, but if the bad guys' actions had made more sense to me, I would have enjoyed it more. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From jalipaz at stanford.edu Wed Feb 4 08:56:31 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 08:56:31 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I will probably make an ineffectual mess out of explaining my distaste for Jared diamond, but oh well I had to go and put the statement out there----Diamond in an attempt to duplicate the success of S. J. Gould stretched his science into areas for which he has no knowledge--that's the easiest way, as a scientist, to dislike his work. Intelligent people read his work and think they understand the phenomena at hand, however because he himself is walking in sand, the stretch is often so off as to be entirely incorrect except in the most superficial manner. Even though Gould would get way out there, he always extended his 'science to the masses' in fields that he was either actively studying, or areas he already had extensive knowledge in. Gould was poo-pooed by biologists and paleontologists alike, largely because of his overwhelming ego---I worked around him for a year, and that is all true, there is also a fair bit of envy there also- I should say that Diamonds' earlier work island population dynamics is spot on, and often fundamental reading for the first and second year evolutionary biologist. > >For those not keeping score, Bellesiles is a discredited historian of >gun issues in early America - sort of the left-wing version of John Lott. > >This is the first I'd heard of non-ideological disagreements with Diamond >- is there something peer-reviewed I could check out? > >ps - "Echeverri" has a cool linguistic story, right? - maybe Basque? From zarkon at illrepute.org Wed Feb 4 09:07:19 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 12:07:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Feng! In-Reply-To: <20040204165056.99581.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040204165056.99581.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: @> To me, it's probably SKZB's most moving book. _Athyra_ might @> be in the same league. However (I'm not going to give anything @> away, but the criticism I'm going to make could conceivably @> lessen your enjoyment of _Cowboy Feng_, and if anyone wants to @> argue with me, they may find spoiler space useful), @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> . @> ...I couldn't understand why the bad guys acted the way they did. @> @> This is connected to the Cool Stuff Theory: what is Uncool Stuff, @> and how much does it vitiate Cool Stuff? My answer is that I've @> reread CFSB&G several times, but if the bad guys' actions had made @> more sense to me, I would have enjoyed it more. It's a tiny stretch, but only a tiny one. Look at how lepers have been treated throughout most of history, despite the low rate of communicability of Hansen's disease. Or the way the Plague was treated in medieval times. Or the stigmatization of the GLBT community over AIDS/HIV. People are always looking for excuses to hate each other, and disease is a convenient one because it provides you with a semi-legitimate reason to avoid and/or destroy certain other people. From mneme at io.com Wed Feb 4 09:13:59 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 11:13:59 -0600 Subject: Feng! In-Reply-To: <20040204165056.99581.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> References: <0HSJ00HQGJ4SN7@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <20040204165056.99581.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <16417.10327.170623.595633@fnord.io.com> Jerry Friedman writes: >--- Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: >> I never read CFSBG >... >To me, it's probably SKZB's most moving book. you forgot a word ("slow") :) >_Athyra_ might >be in the same league. However (I'm not going to give anything >away, but the criticism I'm going to make could conceivably >lessen your enjoyment of _Cowboy Feng_, and if anyone wants to >argue with me, they may find spoiler space useful), In addition to finding it a complete snoozer, I also found the plot entirely unmemorable, so don't think I can manage to argue much of anything about Feng's. It's possible that on re-read, it improves -- certainly, _Tekla_ (by my money, Steve's second slowest book, though I've heard claims that the Satan thing competes in this category as well; didn't notice it when I read it, though) improves significantly on re-read, especially once you realize two things about it: It is the first part of a novel (the second part being Phoenix). It is crafted to move like, well, a Tekla. But there is an art to that. However, I found Feng's sufficiently painful the first time that I've yet to repeat the experience, I'm afraid. (kinda like the Titan board game). -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Feb 4 09:17:03 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 12:17:03 -0500 Subject: Fwd: domesticated animals Message-ID: I understand that overstepping one's expertise can cause inherent doubt, but are any of Diamond's major theses demonstrably (simply or not) _wrong_ or merely challengeable. Lack of authority does not automatically imply lack of accuracy or correctness, and though it may expose my own ignorance on too many issues, I have found Diamond's lines of reasoning and general conclusions to be pretty good. And to bring this on topic (I'm still reading PotD, so don't know if any of these answers are forthcoming, or whether I simply missed them): Is there a reason why an empire-less Dragaera was not simply overrun by the East during the Interregnum? The shorter Fenarian life-span can imply faster adaptability to major changes. 120 years into the Interregnum, a feudal Fenario would be perhaps 5 generations deep into a world where the Dragaerans were relatively quite weak. Perhaps a partial answer lies in this question. Are the diseases of Dragaerans (like the various plagues of the Interregnum) communicable to Fenarians? Noam On Feb 4, 2004, at 11:56 AM, Julie Alipaz wrote: > I will probably make an ineffectual mess out of explaining my > distaste for Jared diamond, but oh well I had to go and put the > statement out there----Diamond in an attempt to duplicate the success > of S. J. Gould stretched his science into areas for which he has no > knowledge--that's the easiest way, as a scientist, to dislike his > work. Intelligent people read his work and think they understand the > phenomena at hand, however because he himself is walking in sand, the > stretch is often so off as to be entirely incorrect except in the most > superficial manner. Even though Gould would get way out there, he > always extended his 'science to the masses' in fields that he was > either actively studying, or areas he already had extensive knowledge > in. Gould was poo-pooed by biologists and paleontologists alike, > largely because of his overwhelming ego---I worked around him for a > year, and that is all true, there is also a fair bit of envy there > also- I should say that Diamonds' earlier work island population > dynamics is spot on, and often fundamental reading for the first and > second year evolutionary biologist. Ah! A Prime Bronze Angel (Noam Raphael Izenberg - keeping the halo polished) From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Wed Feb 4 09:41:40 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 09:41:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals Message-ID: <200402041741.i14Hfeg26072@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Philip Hart wrote: > I think they (wild jhereg) would find the idea of being > turned into poodles repulsive. Can you blame them? I mean, who wouldn't? Ew, now I have to go shower again, just at the thought. :) Chris (Who's not too into yappy "appetizer-dogs"...;) "Life is the nightmare that leaves its mark upon you in order to prove that it is, in fact, real." -Thomas Ligotti- 'The Sect of the Idiot' From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Wed Feb 4 10:02:13 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 10:02:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Feng! Message-ID: <200402041802.i14I2Dg29636@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Joshua Kronengold wrote: > It's possible that on re-read, it improves -- certainly, _Tekla_ (by my > money, Steve's second slowest book, though I've heard claims that the > Satan thing... The "Satan thing"? Are you referring to "To Reign in Hell"? I would not consider that book slow by any stretch. Damn good, with an ending beyond belief, with a host of great characters (on par with the usual), but slow? Or, are you referring to something else, and I'm just slow (and tired...:)? :) Chris "Blind man's night is music to the deaf, and everyone has *two* paths, not one, whence comes tragedy and comedy, forsooth and damn straight, son." - "The Gypsy" - Brust & Lindholm From bio_phy at hotmail.com Wed Feb 4 10:03:33 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 12:03:33 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: Eudora 6 Pro at home, Hotmail (of all things) from work. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >>>Yeah, I do something like that too, except with Pine. >>> >>>Heh. Outlook. >> >> >>Same thing here, with Agent. >> >> > >Thunderbird for me. _________________________________________________________________ Check out the new MSN 9 Dial-up ? fast & reliable Internet access with prime features! http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=dialup/home&ST=1 From mneme at io.com Wed Feb 4 10:06:38 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 12:06:38 -0600 Subject: Feng! In-Reply-To: <200402041802.i14I2Dg29636@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> References: <200402041802.i14I2Dg29636@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Message-ID: <16417.13486.150865.985149@fnord.io.com> Chris Olson - SunPS writes: >The "Satan thing"? Are you referring to "To Reign in Hell"? Yes. Couldn't remember the name. >I would not consider that book slow by any stretch. Damn >good, with an ending beyond belief, with a host of great >characters (on par with the usual), but slow? I didn't find it slow or boring. I was also 14, and found the ideas involved original. I suspect, given the reactions of my (somewhat older, and older when they read it) friends, that I'd find it less palatable now -- clearly, TRiH has a lot of fans, but it's got plenty of detractors as well (obviously, not anywhere near as commonly disliked as, say, Feng's). -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Feb 4 10:30:22 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 13:30:22 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <40211384.3080307@insaneninjahero.com> References: <9747A456-571E-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> <40211384.3080307@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: <313F091C-5740-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> I started to wonder if you were basking in the glow of satisfaction >from your excellent deduction, and wondered whether "bask" was to "Basque" as "gyp" is to "Gypsy". Any takers? Ken On Feb 4, 2004, at 10:45 AM, Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert wrote: > Matthew Klahn wrote: > >> On Feb 3, 2004, at 21:00 , David Silberstein wrote: >>> On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Paul Echeverri wrote: >>> >>>> On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST), Philip Hart >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> ps - "Echeverri" has a cool linguistic story, right? - maybe >>>>> Basque? >>>> >>>> >>>> Give the man a cigar. >>>> >> My wife's maiden-name is Chavarr?a (which she kept as a hypenation, >> making her's the longest name I've run across since some Greek names >> like Eleftoloperous: Chavarr?a-Klahn), and her father is Bolivian. >> BUT, apparently is less common than either Echeverri, Echeverria, >> etc, since she will frequently tell people her name (well, she's a >> Linguistics grad student, so this is probably not a normal sample of >> people) and they tend to say, "Echeverria?". >> -- >> Matthew S. Klahn >> Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. >> http://www.codetek.com > > I live in Winnemucca NV, which is apparently known occasionally as > "Basque-town" ... all the old money is Basque, I think the original > settlers were Basque, that sort of thing. Instead of being a Mason, to > get ahead in WMCA you have to be Basque ;) > > There are lots of Echeverria's here, no other variations on that name > that I'm aware of, so yeah, I'd say that sans-e is less common ... > generalizing from a sample of one. > > Kisc > From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Wed Feb 4 10:38:44 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 10:38:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: LoCB blue Message-ID: <20040204183844.65544.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> Has anyone else noticed that the Lord of Castle Black (hard back) leaves blue ink on your fingers? This would be without the sleeve. Maybe it's just my copy. BTW: (Re: warning to newbies thread) I use PINE at school, so I am trying Yahoo to keep these emails organized. They let me set up folders and filters and stuff and other stuff. I'll be sure to keep html turned off :-P __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Feb 4 10:58:49 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 13:58:49 -0500 Subject: LoCB blue In-Reply-To: <20040204183844.65544.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040204183844.65544.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2B1AFCF3-5744-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> I use the Mac OS X Mail program which works quite well. On Feb 4, 2004, at 1:38 PM, Kenneth Stone wrote: > Has anyone else noticed that the > Lord of Castle Black (hard back) > leaves blue ink on your fingers? > This would be without the sleeve. > > Maybe it's just my copy. > > BTW: (Re: warning to newbies thread) > I use PINE at school, so I am trying > Yahoo to keep these emails organized. > They let me set up folders and > filters and stuff and other stuff. > > I'll be sure to keep html turned off :-P > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! > http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ > From Hereward at rogers.com Wed Feb 4 11:11:33 2004 From: Hereward at rogers.com (Gary Russell) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:11:33 -0500 Subject: Feng! or the s@tan thing References: <200402041802.i14I2Dg29636@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> <16417.13486.150865.985149@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <004101c3eb52$b3dc22e0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Sorry just had to pitch in and boggle at To Reign in Hell being dismissed as "the Satan thing." Whoa. Okay, done now. The member petitions the board to reinstate judeo-christian culture and history studies and Milton on the curriculum for 14 year olds. GJR ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joshua Kronengold" To: Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 1:06 PM Subject: RE: Feng! > Chris Olson - SunPS writes: > >The "Satan thing"? Are you referring to "To Reign in Hell"? > > Yes. Couldn't remember the name. > > >I would not consider that book slow by any stretch. Damn > >good, with an ending beyond belief, with a host of great > >characters (on par with the usual), but slow? > > I didn't find it slow or boring. I was also 14, and found the ideas > involved original. > > I suspect, given the reactions of my (somewhat older, and older when > they read it) friends, that I'd find it less palatable now -- clearly, > TRiH has a lot of fans, but it's got plenty of detractors as well > (obviously, not anywhere near as commonly disliked as, say, Feng's). > > > -- > Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) > --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' > /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ > /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From bio_phy at hotmail.com Wed Feb 4 11:13:28 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 13:13:28 -0600 Subject: Feng! or the s@tan thing Message-ID: Seconded. ;) johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >The member petitions the board to reinstate judeo-christian culture and >history studies and Milton on the curriculum for 14 year olds. > >GJR _________________________________________________________________ High-speed users?be more efficient online with the new MSN Premium Internet Software. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/prem&ST=1 From warlord at dragon.com Wed Feb 4 11:23:23 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:23:23 -0500 Subject: Feng! or the s@tan thing In-Reply-To: Message-ID: True wisdom which should be worshiped! I abyss myself. W > -----Original Message----- > From: Johne Cook [mailto:bio_phy at hotmail.com] > Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 2:13 PM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Feng! or the s at tan thing > > > Seconded. ;) > > johne (phy) cook > wisconsin, usa > > aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ > > "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." > Tom Waits, Mule Variations > > > >The member petitions the board to reinstate judeo-christian culture and > >history studies and Milton on the curriculum for 14 year olds. > > > >GJR > > _________________________________________________________________ > High-speed users?be more efficient online with the new MSN > Premium Internet > Software. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/prem&ST=1 > > > From Chrisf.Olson at sun.com Wed Feb 4 11:41:39 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at sun.com (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 11:41:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <200402041941.i14Jfdg17086@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Iv?n Rebollo wrote: > I thought it was stated that Mario is Mark A. Mendel, isn't it? Yeah, I've heard that, but I can't believe it. Mark is far too smart to be Mario. I mean, can you see Mark falling for the kind of trick pulled in FHYA? I can't. Unless he's dumbing himself down in his "Mario" disguise, but I can't picture that, either.... Hehehe... Chris "So farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear, Farewell remorse! All good to me is lost; Evil, be thou my Good" - John Milton - 'Paradise Lost' From warlord at dragon.com Wed Feb 4 11:51:43 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:51:43 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <200402041941.i14Jfdg17086@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Chris Olson - SunPS [mailto:Chrisf.Olson at sun.com] > Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 2:42 PM > To: Chrisf.Olson at sun.com; dragaera at dragaera.info; pulmon at comcast.net; > ivanrebollo at hotmail.com > Subject: Re: warning to newbies > > > Iv?n Rebollo wrote: > > I thought it was stated that Mario is Mark A. Mendel, isn't it? > > Yeah, I've heard that, but I can't believe it. Mark > is far too smart to be Mario. I mean, can you see > Mark falling for the kind of trick pulled in FHYA? I can't. > > Unless he's dumbing himself down in his "Mario" disguise, > but I can't picture that, either.... > > Hehehe... > Chris > "So farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear, > Farewell remorse! All good to me is lost; > Evil, be thou my Good" > - John Milton - 'Paradise Lost' > > Maybe he is just covering for Mario and Marks REAL name is Luigi. W "I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly, but you have elected the way of pain!" --Saruman, speaking for sysadmins everywhere From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 4 12:15:03 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 12:15:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <9747A456-571E-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <9747A456-571E-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > My wife's maiden-name is Chavarr?a (which she kept as a hypenation, > making hers the longest name I've run across since some Greek names > like Eleftoloperous: Chavarr?a-Klahn)... "Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia" by Aimee Nezhukumatathil: http://slate.msn.com/id/2094134/ From warlord at dragon.com Wed Feb 4 12:24:32 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:24:32 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Philip Hart [mailto:philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU] > Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 3:15 PM > To: Dragaera List > Subject: Re: domesticated animals > > > > > On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > > > My wife's maiden-name is Chavarr?a (which she kept as a hypenation, > > making hers the longest name I've run across since some Greek names > > like Eleftoloperous: Chavarr?a-Klahn)... > > "Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia" by Aimee Nezhukumatathil: > http://slate.msn.com/id/2094134/ > > Isn't that a fear of people who take advantage of underage hippos ? W Who also enjoys Sesquipedalian verbosity. From mklahn at mac.com Wed Feb 4 12:27:16 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:27:16 -0600 Subject: Feng! or the s@tan thing In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <85CF191B-5750-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Feb 4, 2004, at 13:23 , Warlord wrote: > True wisdom which should be worshiped! I abyss myself. > > W Do not tempt me to respond! Get thee behind me! Though, really, I'll be damned if I just let that pass. No, I find that if I get angry about these sorts of puns, bad things will happen, so I guess I'll just need to rein in yells. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From mneme at io.com Wed Feb 4 12:53:34 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:53:34 -0600 Subject: Feng! or the s@tan thing In-Reply-To: <004101c3eb52$b3dc22e0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> References: <200402041802.i14I2Dg29636@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> <16417.13486.150865.985149@fnord.io.com> <004101c3eb52$b3dc22e0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <16417.23502.426794.600933@fnord.io.com> Gary Russell writes: >Sorry just had to pitch in and boggle at To Reign in Hell being dismissed as >"the Satan thing." Dismissed? No. I just didn't feel like looking up the name, and was blanking on it. It happens; deal. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From casca913 at gbronline.com Wed Feb 4 13:13:50 2004 From: casca913 at gbronline.com (Charlie Smith) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:13:50 -0600 Subject: I am new here... References: Message-ID: <004501c3eb63$cff119c0$1ed2fdd8@pentium4> > While I am not a representative of Tor Publishing, Inc. (nor do I play > one on the web), and indeed, I do not even own the omnibus editions > you refer to, I feel compelled to point out that all of the Vlad > Taltos novels up until ORCA were all published by Ace Publishing > (actually currently an imprint of Penguin Putnam), as indeed were the > omnibus editions. Always rely on Ace Publishing to give the authors with the slightly off the wall or "out of niche" books. I've heard several authors make the comment to this effect such as Robert Asprin and P.N. Elrod. I'm glad Ace was around to give them all thier first chances. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 4 13:24:44 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 13:24:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Fwd: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > And to bring this on topic (I'm still reading PotD, so don't know if > any of these answers are forthcoming, or whether I simply missed them): > Is there a reason why an empire-less Dragaera was not simply overrun by > the East during the Interregnum? The shorter Fenarian life-span can > imply faster adaptability to major changes. 120 years into the > Interregnum, a feudal Fenario would be perhaps 5 generations deep into > a world where the Dragaerans were relatively quite weak. Perhaps a > partial answer lies in this question. Are the diseases of Dragaerans > (like the various plagues of the Interregnum) communicable to > Fenarians? Excellent questions. Re diseases, I believe we have no evidence, but I'd be inclined to think the J didn't mess with the basic cellular mechanics to the point that viruses couldn't learn to pass to Ds from Es, given that they live in close proximity (v. Guns etc for more). Re an Eastern invasion, remember that the Fenarian treaty might still be remembered, that 200k years of bad stuff coming from the West might be remembered, that it's not simple to cross the mountains, that the pre-Disaster Empire wasn't that dependent on battle magic (as portrayed by Paarfi, anyway - why the east edge of the Pepperfields wasn't just mined or walled off by sorcery is unclear to me - SKZB arranging that in most battles the wizards would cancel while the grunts fought), that the Gods have influence on both sides, that there might well be no pressure in the East to launch an invasion (I believe that mass movements like the Vandals on Rome tend to be because of events upstream), that the western landscape is rather inhospitable, that it takes a long time to conquer a continent, and that any armed Dragaeran would be a formidable foe to the average lowtech Easterner. From casca913 at gbronline.com Wed Feb 4 13:27:19 2004 From: casca913 at gbronline.com (Charlie Smith) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:27:19 -0600 Subject: domesticated animals References: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> Message-ID: <008f01c3eb65$b1fa6ff0$1ed2fdd8@pentium4> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kagan, Marty" To: Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 6:52 PM Subject: domesticated animals > > I'm half-way through Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by > Jared Diamond, and I'm struck by the similarity between the implicit > agreement made between humans and wolves in 10,000 BC which led to their > domestication, and the explicit agreement made between Vlad and Loish's > mother (and later, between Vlad and Rocza), ie: help me hunt, in exchange > for long life & easy meat. No big surprise there, but it's not often one is > struck by the thought, "hey, this reminds me of Brust" while reading dense > history texts. > > Which led me to wonder: Has anyone else in Dragaeran history ever attempted > to domesticate wild jhereg? Is the natural lifespan of wild jhereg on a > (I'll avoid the word "human" here for the sake of clarity) Dragaeran-scale, > or a Fenarian-scale? Assuming the later, shouldn't one expect to see, over > the next couple of reigns, a similar pattern of selective breeding and > "artifical selection"? By the time the next Cycle comes around, will there > be the jhereg equivalents of Dachshunds, Poodles, and Weimaraners running > around? Have we seen ANY pets in Dragerea with regards to the dominant race there? I can't think of any off hand, nor can I think of them even treating thier horses like anything but tools to be used. Perhaps the Dragereans keep Teckla for pets... From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 4 13:34:08 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:34:08 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 3 Feb 2004, Paul Echeverri wrote: #On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST), Philip Hart # #> This is the first I'd heard of non-ideological disagreements with Diamond #> - is there something peer-reviewed I could check out? # #Not that I can think of offhand, but he lost me in the foreword with his #Noble, Smarter than Us White People, Savages bit. I read the book and I don't recall reacting that way to it. I think we must be reading it differently. Too long ago to remember just what the man said, and I can't lay hands on it now... or was it destroyed by the flood in the basement?... I should reread it, anyway. -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 4 13:35:21 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:35:21 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Iv?n Rebollo wrote: #Chris Olson wrote: # #>And we get a chance to discuss the latest in the "Who's Mario"* #>debate, without that interfering author poking his #>head out and insisting that *Mario* is Mario. (As if!) # #I thought it was stated that Mario is Mark A. Mendel, isn't it? It was not. Mario is Mark A. Mndel. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 4 13:38:40 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:38:40 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <399C49F6-5720-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: #While I don't have any text references available, it seems that we #might not be able to use Loiosh in any life-span calculations of #jhereg, since it appears that Ambrus the cat has been Noish-pa's #familiar for as long as Vlad can remember, which appears to be longer #than the normal life-span of a domesticated cat. My impression of that #was always that witches can extend their own lives, and also the lives #of their familiars through heavy drug use, er, herbal supplementation. #Yeah, vitamins, that's it. >From memory: female jhereg: "And what will you offer it in return?" Vlad: "Long life, my friendship, and food without hunting." I'm not sure on the exact words, but "long life" was in there. #And, while I don't recall seeing any dogs (assuming that Lyorn are a #different species than dogs) Oh, Lyorn are certainly a different species. Is Aerich a dog? And lyorn are also not dogs. "Lyorn growls and lowers horn." -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Feb 4 13:40:49 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 13:40:49 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <008f01c3eb65$b1fa6ff0$1ed2fdd8@pentium4> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> <008f01c3eb65$b1fa6ff0$1ed2fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:27:19 -0600, you wrote: >Have we seen ANY pets in Dragerea with regards to the dominant race there? >I can't think of any off hand, nor can I think of them even treating thier >horses like anything but tools to be used. This brings up another of these anthropology questions: At what in our development did humans start to keep pets, as opposed to, for instance, domesticated dogs which were more like partners. I mean pets as in animals that do nothing but lounge around the home and provide some form of companionship, such as our cats and rats we have in our home. Is it possible that Dragaeran society simply hasn't moved to the right cultural state for the keeping of pets as companions? -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From davids at kithrup.com Wed Feb 4 13:43:16 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 13:43:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <399C49F6-5720-11D8-A598-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: > >And, while I don't recall seeing any dogs (assuming that Lyorn are a >different species than dogs) mentioned in any of the Dragaeran novels, >I can't remember if there were any in _Brokedown Palace_, or if I'm >just mixing up the taltos horse and Huan the hound of Valinor? > You're forgetting Buddy, in ORCA. I think BROKEDOWN PALACE briefly references dogs or rather, hounds. Hunting dogs of some sort. But I may be misremembering. From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Feb 4 13:43:52 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 13:43:52 -0800 Subject: Fwd: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2qp220tor265vcbv8tn30okndbp33u3kcb@4ax.com> On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 12:17:03 -0500, you wrote: >And to bring this on topic (I'm still reading PotD, so don't know if >any of these answers are forthcoming, or whether I simply missed them): >Is there a reason why an empire-less Dragaera was not simply overrun by >the East during the Interregnum? The shorter Fenarian life-span can >imply faster adaptability to major changes. 120 years into the >Interregnum, a feudal Fenario would be perhaps 5 generations deep into >a world where the Dragaerans were relatively quite weak. Perhaps a >partial answer lies in this question. Are the diseases of Dragaerans >(like the various plagues of the Interregnum) communicable to >Fenarians? I can't recall and thus don't have any textev, but I distinctly got the impression that the various plagues' coming from the East would have to mean they were transmitted from Easterner to Dragaeran. How else would the plagues be hanging around waiting to sweep west? -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 4 13:44:41 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:44:41 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <313F091C-5740-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: #I started to wonder if you were basking in the glow of satisfaction #from your excellent deduction, and wondered whether "bask" was to #"Basque" as "gyp" is to "Gypsy". Any takers? To make the mistake of taking you seriously: It isn't. OED OnLine (using "" for the Icelandic letter edh) says: app[arently] for earlier *bathask, after ON. baask, in later Icel. baast to bathe oneself, refl. of baa to bathe. (With loss of "th": cf. "or" from other, sou'west, etc.) (obsolete) 1. intr. (also refl., and with pa. pple. quasi-trans.) To bathe, especially in warm water or liquid, and so transf. to be suffused with, or swim in, blood, etc. Obs. 2. trans. To expose to a flood of warmth, to suffuse with genial warmth. (Cf. to bathe in sunshine.) Chiefly refl.; = 3. 3. intr. To expose oneself to, or disport oneself in, an ambient flood of genial warmth, as in the sunshine, the rays of a fire; to lie enjoying the heat which radiates upon one. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From davids at kithrup.com Wed Feb 4 13:54:30 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 13:54:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <008f01c3eb65$b1fa6ff0$1ed2fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Charlie Smith wrote: > >Have we seen ANY pets in Dragerea with regards to the dominant race >there? I can't think of any off hand, nor can I think of them even >treating thier horses like anything but tools to be used. > Besides the dogs mentioned in my previous post, I remembered cats or kittens being mentioned somewhere. Fortunately, there's the booksearch: Jhereg, ch. 15 (referencing Aliera) She relaxed against the back of her bed, absently stroking a cat that I'd not been introduced to. Issola, ch. 10 (Lady Teldra speaking) "[...] and they worry about our damaging their artifacts the way one might worry about a pet kitten getting into the jewelry box." Issola, ch. 11 The Goddess smiled, as one might at a kitten rolling on the floor playing with a piece of string. And another dog reference: FHYA, ch 11 Khaavren, after noting it, turned his eyes firmly away, feeling uncomfortably like the family dog salivating at the bone on his master's plate. From zarkon at illrepute.org Wed Feb 4 13:54:35 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:54:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> <008f01c3eb65$b1fa6ff0$1ed2fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, lazarus wrote: @> >Have we seen ANY pets in Dragerea with regards to the dominant race there? @> >I can't think of any off hand, nor can I think of them even treating thier @> >horses like anything but tools to be used. @> @> This brings up another of these anthropology questions: At what in @> our development did humans start to keep pets, as opposed to, for @> instance, domesticated dogs which were more like partners. I mean @> pets as in animals that do nothing but lounge around the home and @> provide some form of companionship, such as our cats and rats we have @> in our home. http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpetcats.html From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Feb 4 13:59:25 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:59:25 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <65D342B0-575D-11D8-BAFF-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:24 PM, Philip Hart wrote: > Excellent questions. Re diseases, I believe we have no evidence, but > I'd > be inclined to think the J didn't mess with the basic cellular > mechanics > to the point that viruses couldn't learn to pass to Ds from Es, given > that > they live in close proximity (v. Guns etc for more). That could be answer enough. Even if all the reasoning below were circumvented, an invading army could be put down by one of the plagues. Except: On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:43 PM, lazarus wrote: > I can't recall and thus don't have any textev, but I distinctly got > the impression that the various plagues' coming from the East would > have to mean they were transmitted from Easterner to Dragaeran. How > else would the plagues be hanging around waiting to sweep west? If the plagues come _from_ the East and only hit Dragaera because its various protections have failed, then that would be a wonderful precursor to invasion - even invasion embodied simply by natural expansion to fill the voids left behind by dead outlying Dragaeran communities. > Re an Eastern > invasion, remember that the Fenarian treaty might still be remembered, > that 200k years of bad stuff coming from the West might be remembered, For both of those, if the Easterners are like us (i.e. terrestrial humans) 100+ years is usually enough for great-great grandchildren to a) forget the dangers and sins of the past, and b) believe that the deals made generations before they were born shouldn't apply to them. This goes into one of the other things I've wondered allot about in the relationship between Dragaerans and Easterners in general, and Vlad and his friends in particular. For, for example Morrolan, his time with Vlad is a small fraction of his life span - albeit an event-filled fraction. The "long view" of Dragaerans must be hugely different from the erstwhile long view of Easterners. I note in PotD, at least, that there's allot of 'slowness' - looking out windows or dining for hours, etc, and I suspect it's not just Paarfi being flowery. > that it's not simple to cross the mountains, that the pre-Disaster > Empire > wasn't that dependent on battle magic (as portrayed by Paarfi, anyway - > why the east edge of the Pepperfields wasn't just mined or walled off > by > sorcery is unclear to me - SKZB arranging that in most battles the > wizards > would cancel while the grunts fought), The mountains, I'll give you. The Empire did rely on organized military and chain of command, however, which does not exist in large quantities during the Interregnum. Perhaps the Easterners are technologically or politically behind the Dragaerans in general, but if they are _not_ then some Eastern Khan might just cast his eyes over the mountains to avenge that 200k years of bad stuff - and get some new real estate. > that the Gods have influence on both sides, Deus-ex _will_ always work, of course. > that there might well be no pressure in the East to launch an > invasion, that the western landscape is rather > inhospitable, that it takes a long time to conquer a continent, These all make sense to me. > and that > any armed Dragaeran would be a formidable foe to the average lowtech > Easterner. If the average Easterner is low tech, and if most battles have to be on the order of 1-on-1, I'll agree. In plurality, I think you've convinced me. Any counter arguments on my part would, I think, require knowing more about the East than has been revealed so far. Hi, Large Bronze Apeman (Noam Raphael Izenberg - I knew she was trouble from the start. She always fell for the tall, dark, and hairy types) From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Feb 4 14:05:18 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 14:05:18 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> <008f01c3eb65$b1fa6ff0$1ed2fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: <63r220hi3tsss86s3rg64hemanbm1qraim@4ax.com> On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:54:35 -0500 (EST), you wrote: >On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, lazarus wrote: > >@> >Have we seen ANY pets in Dragerea with regards to the dominant race there? >@> >I can't think of any off hand, nor can I think of them even treating thier >@> >horses like anything but tools to be used. >@> >@> This brings up another of these anthropology questions: At what in >@> our development did humans start to keep pets, as opposed to, for >@> instance, domesticated dogs which were more like partners. I mean >@> pets as in animals that do nothing but lounge around the home and >@> provide some form of companionship, such as our cats and rats we have >@> in our home. > >http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpetcats.html Should have known Cecil would have tackled this. Disappointing, though, as it didn't really pin down an era when useless pets started to be kept. Just "relatively recent." -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Feb 4 14:13:37 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 17:13:37 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <61AA07E2-575F-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> To the esteemed Dr. Whom, philologist extraordinaire, greetings! Thank you for the OED ref. I understood that access to that resource was costly so I did not search it out myself. This is the first word for which I am aware of an Icelandic origin! Ken On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:44 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > > #I started to wonder if you were basking in the glow of satisfaction > #from your excellent deduction, and wondered whether "bask" was to > #"Basque" as "gyp" is to "Gypsy". Any takers? > > To make the mistake of taking you seriously: > > It isn't. OED OnLine (using "" for the Icelandic letter edh) says: > > app[arently] for earlier *bathask, after ON. baask, in later Icel. > baast to bathe oneself, refl. of baa to bathe. (With loss of > "th": cf. "or" from other, sou'west, etc.) > > (obsolete) 1. intr. (also refl., and with pa. pple. quasi-trans.) To > bathe, especially in warm water or liquid, and so transf. to be > suffused > with, or swim in, blood, etc. Obs. > > 2. trans. To expose to a flood of warmth, to suffuse with genial > warmth. (Cf. to bathe in sunshine.) Chiefly refl.; = 3. > > 3. intr. To expose oneself to, or disport oneself in, an ambient > flood of genial warmth, as in the sunshine, the rays of a fire; to lie > enjoying the heat which radiates upon one. > > > -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and > Philological Busybody > a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel > From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 4 14:25:14 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 14:25:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <65D342B0-575D-11D8-BAFF-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> References: <65D342B0-575D-11D8-BAFF-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:24 PM, Philip Hart wrote: > > Excellent questions. Re diseases, I believe we have no evidence, but > > I'd be inclined to think the J didn't mess with the basic cellular > > mechanics to the point that viruses couldn't learn to pass to Ds from > > Es, given that they live in close proximity (v. Guns etc for more). > > That could be answer enough. Even if all the reasoning below were > circumvented, an invading army could be put down by one of the > plagues. Except: > > On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:43 PM, lazarus wrote: > > I can't recall and thus don't have any textev, but I distinctly got > > the impression that the various plagues' coming from the East would > > have to mean they were transmitted from Easterner to Dragaeran. How > > else would the plagues be hanging around waiting to sweep west? > > If the plagues come _from_ the East and only hit Dragaera because its > various protections have failed, then that would be a wonderful > precursor to invasion - even invasion embodied simply by natural > expansion to fill the voids left behind by dead outlying Dragaeran > communities. In _FHYA_, pg 546 of the ppb, Paarfi writes that after the Disaster "the first seeds of the Great Plagues were beginning in Adrilankha, Candletown, Northport, Branch, and Tirinsar." I think this thread overestimates the weakness of the post-Disaster Empire - certainly formidable Dragaeran armies are assembled in the Pirodessey. From bonham15 at cox.net Wed Feb 4 14:29:07 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:29:07 -0600 Subject: domesticated animals References: Message-ID: <006d01c3eb6e$4df8d970$13856044@user79dn2jmjai> don't ask me quote chapter and verse but i'm pretty sure in one of the novels loiosh was making fun of someone's dog. andy > #While I don't have any text references available, it seems that we > #might not be able to use Loiosh in any life-span calculations of > #jhereg, since it appears that Ambrus the cat has been Noish-pa's > #familiar for as long as Vlad can remember, which appears to be longer > #than the normal life-span of a domesticated cat. My impression of that > #was always that witches can extend their own lives, and also the lives > #of their familiars through heavy drug use, er, herbal supplementation. > #Yeah, vitamins, that's it. > > From memory: > female jhereg: "And what will you offer it in return?" > Vlad: "Long life, my friendship, and food without hunting." > > I'm not sure on the exact words, but "long life" was in there. > > #And, while I don't recall seeing any dogs (assuming that Lyorn are a > #different species than dogs) > > Oh, Lyorn are certainly a different species. Is Aerich a dog? > > And lyorn are also not dogs. "Lyorn growls and lowers horn." > > -- Mark A. Mandel > http://cracksandshards.com > a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website > > From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Wed Feb 4 15:24:59 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 15:24:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <008f01c3eb65$b1fa6ff0$1ed2fdd8@pentium4> Message-ID: <20040204232459.4953.qmail@web21407.mail.yahoo.com> > Have we seen ANY pets in Dragerea with regards to > the dominant race there? > I can't think of any off hand, nor can I think of > them even treating thier > horses like anything but tools to be used. > > Perhaps the Dragereans keep Teckla for pets... Aliera's got a cat (in Jhereg). Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From bryann at bryann.net Wed Feb 4 15:25:21 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 17:25:21 -0600 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Pardon me if I jump in here unannounced: >> If the plagues come _from_ the East and only hit Dragaera because its >> various protections have failed, then that would be a wonderful >> precursor to invasion - even invasion embodied simply by natural >> expansion to fill the voids left behind by dead outlying Dragaeran >> communities. > >In _FHYA_, pg 546 of the ppb, Paarfi writes that after the Disaster >"the first seeds of the Great Plagues were beginning in Adrilankha, >Candletown, Northport, Branch, and Tirinsar." I don't believe Branch or Tirinsar are mentioned elsewhere, but the other three are all port cities... Has anyone run across a reference to the Empire trading with Easterners over water? I can't think of any. Bryan From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 4 15:36:13 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 15:36:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: > Pardon me if I jump in here unannounced: > > >> If the plagues come _from_ the East and only hit Dragaera because its > >> various protections have failed, then that would be a wonderful > >> precursor to invasion - even invasion embodied simply by natural > >> expansion to fill the voids left behind by dead outlying Dragaeran > >> communities. > > > >In _FHYA_, pg 546 of the ppb, Paarfi writes that after the Disaster > >"the first seeds of the Great Plagues were beginning in Adrilankha, > >Candletown, Northport, Branch, and Tirinsar." > > I don't believe Branch or Tirinsar are mentioned elsewhere, but the other > three are all port cities... I assumed that at least the other three were cited as large cities - ports tend to be the largest cities, at least until very recently. OTOH Northport didn't strike me as large in _Orca_. > Has anyone run across a reference to the Empire trading with Easterners > over water? I can't think of any. I believe _Brokedown Palace_ gives a bit of evidence to that effect at the end. I have a vague memory of someone talking about an E-D sea battle around Adrilankha. From Gaertk at aol.com Wed Feb 4 16:29:24 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:29:24 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals Message-ID: <4E116DB8.09667142.00048EA6@aol.com> Philip Hart writes: > On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > >> If the plagues come _from_ the East and only hit Dragaera >> because its various protections have failed, then that >> would be a wonderful precursor to invasion - even invasion >> embodied simply by natural expansion to fill the voids >> left behind by dead outlying Dragaeran communities. > > In _FHYA_, pg 546 of the ppb, Paarfi writes that after the > Disaster "the first seeds of the Great Plagues were > beginning in Adrilankha, Candletown, Northport, Branch, and > Tirinsar." And according to Vlad, Northport would be better named Westport, so it seems that the plagues (at least initially) came through the seaports rather than over the mountains, which would lower the military consequences. To the left, there's mention in POTD of significant Eastern migrations. --KG From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 4 16:42:54 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 16:42:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <4E116DB8.09667142.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <4E116DB8.09667142.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > Philip Hart writes: > > > On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: > > > >> If the plagues come _from_ the East and only hit Dragaera > >> because its various protections have failed, then that > >> would be a wonderful precursor to invasion - even invasion > >> embodied simply by natural expansion to fill the voids > >> left behind by dead outlying Dragaeran communities. > > > > In _FHYA_, pg 546 of the ppb, Paarfi writes that after the > > Disaster "the first seeds of the Great Plagues were > > beginning in Adrilankha, Candletown, Northport, Branch, and > > Tirinsar." > > And according to Vlad, Northport would be better named > Westport, so it seems that the plagues (at least initially) > came through the seaports rather than over the mountains, > which would lower the military consequences. I would (no reason) guess the plagues were of Dragaeran origin, and for the record I didn't intend to suggest any military consequences earlier. From warlord at dragon.com Wed Feb 4 17:15:37 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 20:15:37 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <20040204232459.4953.qmail@web21407.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Kenneth Stone [mailto:knots4kcs at yahoo.com] > Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 6:25 PM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: domesticated animals > > > > Have we seen ANY pets in Dragerea with regards to > > the dominant race there? > > I can't think of any off hand, nor can I think of > > them even treating thier > > horses like anything but tools to be used. > > > > Perhaps the Dragereans keep Teckla for pets... > > Aliera's got a cat (in Jhereg). > I'm glad you beat me to this, because that's not the way I would have phrased it. You kept me from being great-sworded, so I owe you one. Need anyone invaded? W "A good pun is its own reword." From dusty at sayersnet.com Wed Feb 4 17:21:37 2004 From: dusty at sayersnet.com (J A 'Dusty' Sayers) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 20:21:37 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <006d01c3eb6e$4df8d970$13856044@user79dn2jmjai> References: <006d01c3eb6e$4df8d970$13856044@user79dn2jmjai> Message-ID: <40219AA1.6070004@sayersnet.com> The servant who keeps the doors to Tortaalik's throne room (Dimma, I believe) in 500 Years After had a pet fish, or so Paarfi tells us. In addition to Hwdrfjanci's dog Buddy, I'm pretty sure pet cats (other than Ambrus) have been mentioned, too (although I think people have mentioned those already--I just didn't see anyone mention the fish). It could be all the cats are there to kill mice, but with anti-vermin spells and things, I don't think people like Morollan would need them except for decoration. Also, there are greeterbirds (whatever those may be), which sound like pets. bonham15 wrote: >don't ask me quote chapter and verse but i'm pretty sure in one of the >novels loiosh was making fun of someone's dog. > > >andy > > >>#While I don't have any text references available, it seems that we >>#might not be able to use Loiosh in any life-span calculations of >>#jhereg, since it appears that Ambrus the cat has been Noish-pa's >>#familiar for as long as Vlad can remember, which appears to be longer >>#than the normal life-span of a domesticated cat. My impression of that >>#was always that witches can extend their own lives, and also the lives >>#of their familiars through heavy drug use, er, herbal supplementation. >>#Yeah, vitamins, that's it. >> >>From memory: >> female jhereg: "And what will you offer it in return?" >> Vlad: "Long life, my friendship, and food without hunting." >> >>I'm not sure on the exact words, but "long life" was in there. >> >>#And, while I don't recall seeing any dogs (assuming that Lyorn are a >>#different species than dogs) >> >>Oh, Lyorn are certainly a different species. Is Aerich a dog? >> >>And lyorn are also not dogs. "Lyorn growls and lowers horn." >> >>-- Mark A. Mandel >> http://cracksandshards.com >> a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website >> >> >> >> > > > > -- J A Dusty Sayers Home Page http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/ Rescue the Princess http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/rescue/ 'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.' --Henry David Thoreau, 'Walden' From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Wed Feb 4 17:44:29 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 20:44:29 -0500 Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: <001d01c3eaad$60d63a40$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> References: <0HSI004A2UBVGV@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <001d01c3eaad$60d63a40$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <20040205014429.GB12495@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Tue, Feb 03, 2004 at 06:28:06PM -0500, Gary Russell wrote: > Don't feel bad about making those of us with original editions of Brokedown > Palace feel old. We'll be just fine. I think I'll go for a walk ... But what about those of us with original editions of 'To Reign In Hell.' From ehahn at isochronism.com Wed Feb 4 17:50:19 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 20:50:19 -0500 Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: <20040205014429.GB12495@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <0HSI004A2UBVGV@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <001d01c3eaad$60d63a40$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <20040205014429.GB12495@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On 4 Feb 2004, at 8:44 PM, Steve Simmons wrote: > On Tue, Feb 03, 2004 at 06:28:06PM -0500, Gary Russell wrote: >> Don't feel bad about making those of us with original editions of >> Brokedown >> Palace feel old. We'll be just fine. I think I'll go for a walk ... > > But what about those of us with original editions of 'To Reign In > Hell.' > First paperback edition of Jhereg, here. ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From Hereward at rogers.com Wed Feb 4 18:19:29 2004 From: Hereward at rogers.com (Gary Russell) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 21:19:29 -0500 Subject: Feng! or the s@tan thing References: <200402041802.i14I2Dg29636@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com><16417.13486.150865.985149@fnord.io.com><004101c3eb52$b3dc22e0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <16417.23502.426794.600933@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <000a01c3eb8e$7c176fe0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> > No. I just didn't feel like looking up the name, and was blanking on > it. It happens; deal. Deal? Ah, gentle correspondent, this simple scribe humbly hopes that, in due course, to clarify, and if all possible, to make abundantly clear, that not only will he deal, but in truth, as will be revealed in all verity, that he has dealt. It is to be hoped, and in all honesty, is hoped, that correspondents and subscribers might have, and indeed, wish to have, a passing acquaintance with the writer, author and historian with whom all these presents are primarily concerned, and all of his works, old and new, high and low, murderous and rebellious, and otherwise. Without any further delay or digression, and truth be told, any desire to further delay or digress, this scribe commends the works of said historian to your esteemed self as well worthy of your valuable time, gentle correspondent, and passionately implores and advises the acquisition of a passing acquaintance with said works, as being of great value. GJR Writing from the slum of the bureaucrats True North Adrilankha From Hereward at rogers.com Wed Feb 4 18:23:32 2004 From: Hereward at rogers.com (Gary Russell) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 21:23:32 -0500 Subject: I am new here... References: <0HSI004A2UBVGV@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <001d01c3eaad$60d63a40$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <20040205014429.GB12495@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <001f01c3eb8f$0cfd8da0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> You mean the SteelDragon press or the Ace? Yeah, got one of those too. Howdy, old feller. Nice weather we're having. GJR ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Simmons" To: "Gary Russell" Cc: "Dragaera List" Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 8:44 PM Subject: Re: I am new here... > On Tue, Feb 03, 2004 at 06:28:06PM -0500, Gary Russell wrote: > > Don't feel bad about making those of us with original editions of Brokedown > > Palace feel old. We'll be just fine. I think I'll go for a walk ... > > But what about those of us with original editions of 'To Reign In Hell.' > From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 4 18:26:56 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 18:26:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: <001f01c3eb8f$0cfd8da0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> References: <0HSI004A2UBVGV@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <001d01c3eaad$60d63a40$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <20040205014429.GB12495@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> <001f01c3eb8f$0cfd8da0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Gary Russell wrote: > You mean the SteelDragon press or the Ace? Yeah, got one of those too. > > Howdy, old feller. Nice weather we're having. Given that the subject is _TRiH_: Letterman last night, on the climate in NYC going from bad to worse: "It's gone from hellish to unbearable". From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 4 18:27:30 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 21:27:30 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: #Besides the dogs mentioned in my previous post, I remembered #cats or kittens being mentioned somewhere. Fortunately, #there's the booksearch: # # # Jhereg, ch. 15 (referencing Aliera) # She relaxed against the back of her bed, absently # stroking a cat that I'd not been introduced to. Well done! And that reminds me of yet another argument for it. > Noish-pa's familiar, Ambrus, is a cat. < But we're talking about pets, not familiars! > But Ambrus is described as a *cat*, not a wildcat, a lynx, "a small dzurlike creature", or any other variation on a wild felid. If we can trust the translation at all -- and Brust isn't shy about using Dragaeran names for unEarthly animals -- Ambrus is a _felis domesticus_, the felid species that arose from domestication. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Wed Feb 4 18:33:05 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 21:33:05 -0500 Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: <001f01c3eb8f$0cfd8da0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> References: <0HSI004A2UBVGV@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <001d01c3eaad$60d63a40$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <20040205014429.GB12495@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> <001f01c3eb8f$0cfd8da0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <20040205023305.GA12671@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 09:23:32PM -0500, Gary Russell wrote: > You mean the SteelDragon press or the Ace? Yeah, got one of those too. Yes. :-) > Howdy, old feller. Nice weather we're having. Nice day if it don't snow more than three inches. From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 4 18:35:10 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 21:35:10 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <61AA07E2-575F-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: #To the esteemed Dr. Whom, philologist extraordinaire, greetings! # #Thank you for the OED ref. I understood that access to that resource #was costly so I did not search it out myself. This is the first word #for which I am aware of an Icelandic origin! My pleasure. Access to OED online is one of the perks of my job. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. -- Mark A. Mandel Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 4 18:37:36 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 18:37:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > > #Besides the dogs mentioned in my previous post, I remembered > #cats or kittens being mentioned somewhere. Fortunately, > #there's the booksearch: > # > # > # Jhereg, ch. 15 (referencing Aliera) > # She relaxed against the back of her bed, absently > # stroking a cat that I'd not been introduced to. > > Well done! And that reminds me of yet another argument for it. > > > Noish-pa's familiar, Ambrus, is a cat. > > < But we're talking about pets, not familiars! > > > But Ambrus is described as a *cat*, not a wildcat, a lynx, "a small > dzurlike creature", or any other variation on a wild felid. If we can > trust the translation at all -- and Brust isn't shy about using > Dragaeran names for unEarthly animals -- Ambrus is a _felis domesticus_, > the felid species that arose from domestication. I'm not impressed re Aliera - she's an iconoclast. She probably has a cat so that she can dice people who mock her about her Eastern affectation. I hope Ambrus is a Maine Coon or whatever, but N-P's Eastern. I am somewhat convinced by Buddy, but on the other H'atchoo has reason to want a guard dog. Teldra's pet metaphors seem better evidence to me, but she has a strongly Eastern background and audience at the time. I resist the pet idea for Ds - imagine getting a dog knowing it would live not 8 years but say 8/40 years = five months. From frank at exit.com Wed Feb 4 19:02:05 2004 From: frank at exit.com (Frank Mayhar) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 19:02:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200402050302.i153251v098854@realtime.exit.com> Edward Hahn wrote: > First paperback edition of Jhereg, here. Um, yeah. (I'm a ooooold man.) -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/ http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/ From davids at kithrup.com Wed Feb 4 23:06:13 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 23:06:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > >Teldra's pet metaphors seem better evidence to me, but she has a >strongly Eastern background and audience at the time. > How about Khaavren's, or rather, Paarfi's pet metaphors? > >I resist the pet idea for Ds - imagine getting a dog knowing it would >live not 8 years but say 8/40 years = five months. > Your argument would be stronger if Earth-humans preferred turtles or parrots to cats or dogs. We rarely choose pets based on longevity. Um. I just remembered that our esteemed author does in fact prefer parrot to dog, but still, you realize I mean in terms of the larger general population. And anyway, his stated reasons have nothing to do with longevity. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 4 23:30:52 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 23:30:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > > > >Teldra's pet metaphors seem better evidence to me, but she has a > >strongly Eastern background and audience at the time. > > > > How about Khaavren's, or rather, Paarfi's pet metaphors? Ah yes: "Khaavren, after noting it, turned his eyes firmly away, feeling uncomfortably like the family dog salivating at the bone on his master's plate." I overlooked that - I'll grant you it is a pet metaphor supporting the pet thesis. I suppose I can argue that this might be a translator's improvement on a passage that makes no cultural sense to us, or that dogs might have a functional role to Dragaerans (in hunting or combat) without implying a role as pets. > > > > >I resist the pet idea for Ds - imagine getting a dog knowing it would > >live not 8 years but say 8/40 years = five months. > > > > Your argument would be stronger if Earth-humans preferred turtles or > parrots to cats or dogs. We rarely choose pets based on longevity. I find this unconvincing - if we could make long-lived pets we would, and I'm sure a parent choosing between a 1-year-half-life poodle and a 20-year-half-life black labrador would go for the latter every time (setting aside the fact that poodles are an offense in S--B's eyes). For the record I'm a cat person. > Um. > > I just remembered that our esteemed author does in fact prefer parrot > to dog, but still, you realize I mean in terms of the larger general > population. And anyway, his stated reasons have nothing to do with > longevity. Your last statement points me towards the opposite conclusion... From ivanrebollo at hotmail.com Thu Feb 5 00:41:03 2004 From: ivanrebollo at hotmail.com (=?iso-8859-1?B?SXbhbiBSZWJvbGxv?=) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 08:41:03 +0000 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: Mario wrote: >#I thought it was stated that Mario is Mark A. Mendel, isn't it? > >It was not. Mario is Mark A. Mndel. > >-- Mark A. Mandel > http://cracksandshards.com > a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website Sorry, Mark. _________________________________________________________________ ?Est?s dispuesto a una cita? Conoce gente en MSN Amor & Amistad. http://match.msn.es/match/mt.cfm?pg=channel From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Thu Feb 5 01:03:12 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 01:03:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals Message-ID: <200402050903.i1593CA05958@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> From: Kenneth Gorelick >This is the first word >for which I am aware of an Icelandic origin! Allow me to provide you with a second: "geyser". -- David Goldfarb |"...at a guess, not more than one in three, and goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |perhaps fewer, Republicans eat people..." goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- James Nicoll From TimN at rcn.com Thu Feb 5 03:54:54 2004 From: TimN at rcn.com (Timothy Nelson) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 06:54:54 -0500 Subject: Feng! References: <200402041802.i14I2Dg29636@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> <16417.13486.150865.985149@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <001101c3ebde$df84df40$d916fea9@ananda> As for the plot of Cowboy Feng's, I originally compared Hag's with AIDS -- then I realized something. If people still believed Homosexuality was a contagious disease, and actually made up evidence to "prove" it, it'd be delt with the same way as Hag's was by the physician. (Ok, so that was slightly off-topic, but I'm having a huge argument about it on another mailing list...please don't kill me. Thanks.) From zarkon at illrepute.org Thu Feb 5 05:31:28 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 08:31:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <63r220hi3tsss86s3rg64hemanbm1qraim@4ax.com> References: <5.2.1.1.0.20040203161237.0264d3e8@usca1ex-priv1.sanmateo.corp.akamai.com> <008f01c3eb65$b1fa6ff0$1ed2fdd8@pentium4> <63r220hi3tsss86s3rg64hemanbm1qraim@4ax.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, lazarus wrote: @> >@> This brings up another of these anthropology questions: At what in @> >@> our development did humans start to keep pets, as opposed to, for @> >@> instance, domesticated dogs which were more like partners. I mean @> >@> pets as in animals that do nothing but lounge around the home and @> >@> provide some form of companionship, such as our cats and rats we have @> >@> in our home. @> > @> >http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpetcats.html @> @> Should have known Cecil would have tackled this. Disappointing, @> though, as it didn't really pin down an era when useless pets started @> to be kept. Just "relatively recent." I suppose that's the best we can expect from a staff report. From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Thu Feb 5 05:56:48 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 08:56:48 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: <4E116DB8.09667142.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <40224BA0.1060000@earthlink.net> Philip Hart wrote: >On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > > >>Philip Hart writes: >> >> >> >>>On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>>If the plagues come _from_ the East and only hit Dragaera >>>>because its various protections have failed, then that >>>>would be a wonderful precursor to invasion - even invasion >>>>embodied simply by natural expansion to fill the voids >>>>left behind by dead outlying Dragaeran communities. >>>> >>>> >>>In _FHYA_, pg 546 of the ppb, Paarfi writes that after the >>>Disaster "the first seeds of the Great Plagues were >>>beginning in Adrilankha, Candletown, Northport, Branch, and >>>Tirinsar." >>> >>> >>And according to Vlad, Northport would be better named >>Westport, so it seems that the plagues (at least initially) >>came through the seaports rather than over the mountains, >>which would lower the military consequences. >> >> > >I would (no reason) guess the plagues were of Dragaeran origin, and for >the record I didn't intend to suggest any military consequences earlier. > > > It makes sense. Dragaerans appear to use cleaning spells to dispose of trash and wastes (at least in Vlad's time, so insert margin of error here); it had to go somewhere during the Interregnum, and it couldn't go into the overcast... Wouldn't that be a recipe for plagues? Of course, there are also the witchcraft-based plagues, as mentioned in Jhereg, but I imagine that witches didn't need too much help in that regard. Jose -- Jose Marquez jhereg69 at earthlink.net From righel at msn.com Thu Feb 5 06:13:09 2004 From: righel at msn.com (Rosemary Ighel) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 08:13:09 -0600 Subject: I am new here... References: <200402050302.i153251v098854@realtime.exit.com> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Mayhar" Subject: Re: I am new here... > Edward Hahn wrote: > > First paperback edition of Jhereg, here. > > Um, yeah. > > (I'm a ooooold man.) Keeping in mind that experience and treachery beats youth and exuberance, R. From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Thu Feb 5 06:27:57 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 09:27:57 -0500 Subject: I am new here... In-Reply-To: <200402050302.i153251v098854@realtime.exit.com> References: <200402050302.i153251v098854@realtime.exit.com> Message-ID: <20040205142757.GD14098@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 07:02:05PM -0800, Frank Mayhar wrote: > Edward Hahn wrote: > > First paperback edition of Jhereg, here. > > Um, yeah. Me too, sorta. My copies of the first three were getting a bit beaten up with re-reading, so I picked up the omnibus and gave the originals to my daughters boyfriend. They're now engaged, but it's probably just a co-incidence. On the other hand, he doesn't get the next set until after they're married. You've got to draw the line somewhere... -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From bio_phy at hotmail.com Thu Feb 5 06:50:22 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 08:50:22 -0600 Subject: I am new here... Message-ID: Good call. ;) (Me, too.) johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >Me too, sorta. My copies of the first three were getting a bit >beaten up with re-reading, so I picked up the omnibus and gave >the originals to my daughters boyfriend. They're now engaged, >but it's probably just a co-incidence. On the other hand, he >doesn't get the next set until after they're married. You've >got to draw the line somewhere... _________________________________________________________________ Find high-speed ?net deals ? comparison-shop your local providers here. https://broadband.msn.com From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Thu Feb 5 06:59:50 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 06:59:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040205145950.32190.qmail@web21404.mail.yahoo.com> > # Jhereg, ch. 15 (referencing Aliera) > # She relaxed against the back of her bed, > absently > # stroking a cat that I'd not been introduced to. > > < But we're talking about pets, not familiars! Perhaps Vlad and more importantly Morrolan (she does live at castle black after all) are rubbing off on her. Chaos, sorcery, and witchcraft, too! Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Thu Feb 5 07:12:45 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 07:12:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <20040205145950.32190.qmail@web21404.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040205151245.43430.qmail@web21402.mail.yahoo.com> --- Kenneth Stone wrote: > > # Jhereg, ch. 15 (referencing Aliera) > > # She relaxed against the back of her bed, > > absently > > # stroking a cat that I'd not been introduced > to. > > > > > < But we're talking about pets, not > familiars! > > Perhaps Vlad and more importantly Morrolan (she does > live at castle black after all) are rubbing off on > her. Chaos, sorcery, and witchcraft, too! > > Ken > Now I'm replying to myself :-P In Issola, Aliera turns to Morrolan to explain witchcraft. Like a student? Or like she is clueless about witchcraft? Hmmm... Issola, Chap 10: Oh, well, now I understood everything. Heh. I said, "And witchcraft?" She looked at me, blinked, then turned to Morrolan. "Witchcraft," he explained, "is something else again." "Ah," I said. (Book search was good for this one) Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Thu Feb 5 10:43:23 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:43:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <61AA07E2-575F-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040205184323.10206.qmail@web14427.mail.yahoo.com> --- Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > To the esteemed Dr. Whom, philologist extraordinaire, greetings! > > Thank you for the OED ref. I understood that access to that resource > was costly so I did not search it out myself. This is the first word > for which I am aware of an Icelandic origin! > > Ken > On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:44 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: [snip] > > OED OnLine (using "" for the Icelandic letter edh) says: > > > > app[arently] for earlier *bathask, after ON. baask, in later Icel. > > baast to bathe oneself, refl. of baa to bathe. (With loss of > > "th": cf. "or" from other, sou'west, etc.) [snip again] Just to clarify, it's not of Icelandic origin. It's from (or "after") an Old Norse (ON.) word. The later Icelandic word is a cousin of our English word, not an ancestor. Lots of Old Norse words have descendants in both English and Icelandic. Just don't ask me to name one. Spearwielder Peaceman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Thu Feb 5 10:46:50 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:46:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <40211384.3080307@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: <20040205184650.16151.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> --- Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert wrote: > Matthew Klahn wrote: ... > > My wife's maiden-name is Chavarr?a (which she kept as a hypenation, > > making her's the longest name I've run across since some Greek names > > like Eleftoloperous: Chavarr?a-Klahn), and her father is Bolivian. > BUT, > > apparently is less common than either Echeverri, Echeverria, etc, > since > > she will frequently tell people her name (well, she's a Linguistics > grad > > student, so this is probably not a normal sample of people) and they > > tend to say, "Echeverria?". > > > > -- > > Matthew S. Klahn > > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > > http://www.codetek.com > > > > I live in Winnemucca NV, which is apparently known occasionally as > "Basque-town" ... all the old money is Basque, I think the original > settlers were Basque, that sort of thing. Instead of being a Mason, to > get ahead in WMCA you have to be Basque ;) > > There are lots of Echeverria's here, no other variations on that name > that I'm aware of, so yeah, I'd say that sans-e is less common ... > generalizing from a sample of one. If off-topic trivia is allowed, here in northern New Mexico there are lots of Chavarrias, especially Indians from Santa Clara Pueblo. Since "lots", for northern N.M., means maybe a few dozen, this doesn't refute the statement that the versions with E are more common. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From mam at theworld.com Thu Feb 5 13:41:10 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 16:41:10 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Iv?n Rebollo wrote: #Mario wrote: # # #>#I thought it was stated that Mario is Mark A. Mendel, isn't it? #> #>It was not. Mario is Mark A. Mndel. #> #>-- Mark A. Mandel #> http://cracksandshards.com #> a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website # #Sorry, Mark. Heh. No problem. You will live. -- Mark A. Mandel (alias...) http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Thu Feb 5 13:50:15 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 16:50:15 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <40224BA0.1060000@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Jose Marquez wrote: #It makes sense. Dragaerans appear to use cleaning spells to dispose of #trash and wastes (at least in Vlad's time, so insert margin of error #here); it had to go somewhere during the Interregnum, and it couldn't go #into the overcast... Wouldn't that be a recipe for plagues? Oh, bravo! An excellent idea!! When Brust said that the Overcast was the result of using magic to throw out the garbage for 200,000 years, I didn't take that to mean literally that the Overcast *was* what became of the garbage -- although that would be a neat explanation for Rocza's holding her breath as she flies through it. I took "throw out the garbage" there as shorthand to refer to using magic for every little thing in life: so much use of magic that whatever waste products resulted from the magical process *itself* accumulated faster than they could dissipate or degrade, becoming the Overcast. -- But that just was my interpretation. So I applaud you again, for another excellent idea. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Thu Feb 5 14:04:32 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 17:04:32 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <40224BA0.1060000@earthlink.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Jose Marquez wrote: #It makes sense. Dragaerans appear to use cleaning spells to dispose of #trash and wastes (at least in Vlad's time, so insert margin of error #here); it had to go somewhere during the Interregnum, and it couldn't go PS: May I use these ideas on Cracks and Shards? May I credit you? Use your email address? Do you want it spambaffled? -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From chadu at yahoo.com Thu Feb 5 14:04:43 2004 From: chadu at yahoo.com (Chad Underkoffler) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 14:04:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Warning to Newbies Message-ID: <20040205220443.31923.qmail@web41312.mail.yahoo.com> > Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:35:21 -0500 > From: Mark A Mandel > > On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Iv?n Rebollo wrote: > > #Chris Olson wrote: > #>And we get a chance to discuss the latest in the "Who's > #>Mario"* debate, without that interfering author poking his > #>head out and insisting that *Mario* is Mario. (As if!) > # > #I thought it was stated that Mario is Mark A. Mendel, isn't > #it? > > It was not. Mario is Mark A. Mndel. Say *what*? Hidey-ho, folks. New to the list... But wasn't I on it in a past life? (shrugs) Oh, well. Whatever. Hi. CU ===== Chad Underkoffler [chadu at yahoo.com] Atomic Sock Monkey Press [ http://www.atomicsockmonkey.com ] Live Journal [ http://www.livejournal.com/users/chadu/ ] "Pardon me while I have a strange interlude." -- Groucho Marx From mam at theworld.com Thu Feb 5 14:08:34 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 17:08:34 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <20040205184323.10206.qmail@web14427.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: #> On Feb 4, 2004, at 4:44 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: #[snip] # #> > OED OnLine (using "" for the Icelandic letter edh) says: #> > #> > app[arently] for earlier *bathask, after ON. baask, in later Icel. #[snip again] # #Just to clarify, it's not of Icelandic origin. It's from (or #"after") an Old Norse (ON.) word. The later Icelandic word is a #cousin of our English word, not an ancestor. Good point; thanks. I think of edh as an Icelandic letter because AFAIK that's the only modern language that uses it (and thorn as well). #Spearwielder Peaceman Nice! I'd most likely be be Hammer Almondtree (if my father hadn't taken "-baum" off his last name in the Army in WW2). -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From mklahn at mac.com Thu Feb 5 14:12:30 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 16:12:30 -0600 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6414E0F4-5828-11D8-A489-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Feb 5, 2004, at 16:08 , Mark A Mandel wrote: > Nice! I'd most likely be be Hammer Almondtree (if my father hadn't > taken > "-baum" off his last name in the Army in WW2). > Your dad's name didn't happen to be.... Izzy, was it? Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum! -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From Randi128 at aol.com Thu Feb 5 14:29:28 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 17:29:28 EST Subject: Warning to Newbies Message-ID: <1ce.19077ad9.2d541dc8@aol.com> In a message dated 02/05/2004 5:05:38 PM Eastern Standard Time, chadu at yahoo.com writes: > Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 16:35:21 -0500 > > From: Mark A Mandel > > > > On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Iv?n Rebollo wrote: > > > > #Chris Olson wrote: > > #>And we get a chance to discuss the latest in the "Who's > > #>Mario"* debate, without that interfering author poking his > > #>head out and insisting that *Mario* is Mario. (As if!) > > # > > #I thought it was stated that Mario is Mark A. Mendel, isn't > > #it? > > > > It was not. Mario is Mark A. Mndel. > > Say *what*? > > Hidey-ho, folks. New to the list... But wasn't I on it in a past > life? > No. > (shrugs) > > Oh, well. Whatever. > > Hi. > > CU > Hi, and welcome to our little slice of heaven. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the useless arguing of semantics, politics and esoteric quotes. I must say that I enjoy the discussions on this list immensely, even if I do not always participate or know what people are talking about. John D. Barbato, OD :) From mam at theworld.com Thu Feb 5 15:28:01 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 18:28:01 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <6414E0F4-5828-11D8-A489-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: #On Feb 5, 2004, at 16:08 , Mark A Mandel wrote: #> Nice! I'd most likely be be Hammer Almondtree (if my father hadn't #> taken #> "-baum" off his last name in the Army in WW2). # #Your dad's name didn't happen to be.... Izzy, was it? # #Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum! No, Howard. Yes, yes, yes. Am I missing a joke? -- Mark A. Mandel From mklahn at mac.com Thu Feb 5 15:54:30 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 17:54:30 -0600 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 5, 2004, at 17:28 , Mark A Mandel wrote: > No, Howard. Yes, yes, yes. Am I missing a joke? Sorry, I guess I can't assume that everyone is a Seinfeld fan. http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageServlet/showid-112/epid -2391/ This has an episode synopsis, but you kinda have to see the episode to get the joke. Sorry. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Thu Feb 5 17:39:56 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 17:39:56 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040206013956.GA16957@ofb.net> On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 06:37:36PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > I resist the pet idea for Ds - imagine getting a dog knowing it would > live not 8 years but say 8/40 years = five months. People keep pet rats, mice, crickets, and fish. Short life is not a barrier. It may change the dynamic, but people can keep one cuddly (or pretty) creature after another. As for pets on Earth, I think guinea pigs started out as food animals in the Andes. -xx- Damien X-) From jalipaz at stanford.edu Thu Feb 5 17:43:13 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 17:43:13 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals Message-ID: > >As for pets on Earth, I think guinea pigs started out as food animals in the >Andes. > >-xx- Damien X-) they still are-- jaa From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Feb 5 17:55:51 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 17:55:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: <20040206013956.GA16957@ofb.net> References: <20040206013956.GA16957@ofb.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Damien Sullivan wrote: > On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 06:37:36PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: > > > I resist the pet idea for Ds - imagine getting a dog knowing it would > > live not 8 years but say 8/40 years = five months. > > People keep pet rats, mice, crickets, and fish. Short life is not a barrier. > It may change the dynamic, but people can keep one cuddly (or pretty) creature > after another. Rats live three years or so, mice live a few years, guinea pigs five years. I assert (no evidence) that on average people grieve more about the loss of a burmese cat or a fox terrier than a rodent. My feeling is that fish are decorative, and most owners wouldn't notice if a similar-looking one was swapped for their pilotfish. Maybe arowanas have personalities - I don't know. Birds live a long time and have personalities to boot. I apologize to cricket owners for slandering their pets. > > As for pets on Earth, I think guinea pigs started out as food animals in the > Andes. > > -xx- Damien X-) > From matthew at infodancer.org Thu Feb 5 23:35:47 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 01:35:47 -0600 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040206073547.GB25357@infodancer.org> On Tue, Feb 03, 2004 at 06:42:58PM -0800, Paul Echeverri wrote: > On Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:29:15 -0800 (PST), Philip Hart > wrote: > >For those not keeping score, Bellesiles is a discredited historian of > >gun issues in early America - sort of the left-wing version of John Lott. > That sort of implies you believe Lott's been discredited, which I hardly > think is the case, certainly nowhere near the scale of Bellesille's > widespread fraud. I've been busy lately so I didn't see this when it was first posted, but I'm glad someone piped up. While there are some analogies between Bellesiles and Lott, they are mostly there because one side of the debate, having been stung by Bellesilles, is desperately trying to *force* an analogy into place. I wrote a lengthy analysis of the comparison, in case anyone is interested and not already familiar with both controversies: http://www.triggerfinger.org/features/bellesilesvlott.jsp -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Feb 6 08:16:29 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 08:16:29 -0800 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: <20040206013956.GA16957@ofb.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 17:55:51 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > >On Thu, 5 Feb 2004, Damien Sullivan wrote: > >> On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 06:37:36PM -0800, Philip Hart wrote: >> >> > I resist the pet idea for Ds - imagine getting a dog knowing it would >> > live not 8 years but say 8/40 years = five months. >> >> People keep pet rats, mice, crickets, and fish. Short life is not a barrier. >> It may change the dynamic, but people can keep one cuddly (or pretty) creature >> after another. > >Rats live three years or so, mice live a few years, guinea pigs five >years. I assert (no evidence) that on average people grieve more about >the loss of a burmese cat or a fox terrier than a rodent. > Depends on the person. I know our last rat's death was a blow to all of us. Surprising to me, as I've never actually gotten worked up about pets. But it could be the individual animal, as Mr Nibbles had a great personality. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Fri Feb 6 12:40:19 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 12:40:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Kiera vs Cawti Message-ID: <20040206204019.82370.qmail@web21409.mail.yahoo.com> Has anyone else noticed this slip in Jhereg? I think *Kiera* is supposed to be Cawti. --- Jhereg, Ace Edition (April 1983), by you know who p. 207-209 Vlad and Kiera discuss the knife switch. p. 209-210 Vlad turns to Cawti. They discuss taking out a guard. Then Vlad looks over at Aliera: "No," she (Aliera) said. "They're both good enough to get defenses up quickly if they have to, but I guess they don't want to call attention to themselves by using spells in Castle Black unless they actually have to." "You keep referring to 'they,'" said *Kiera*. "Which one am I going to be taking out?" "That's just the problem," I said. "We don't know which one that will be. Does that present a problem?" *She* gave me what I call her I-know-something- you-don't-know smile, and made a dagger appear in her right hand. She spun it in the air, caught it, and made it disappear. I had myself answered. --- Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From mklahn at mac.com Fri Feb 6 12:54:37 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 14:54:37 -0600 Subject: Kiera vs Cawti In-Reply-To: <20040206204019.82370.qmail@web21409.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040206204019.82370.qmail@web21409.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Feb 6, 2004, at 14:40 , Kenneth Stone wrote: > Has anyone else noticed this slip in Jhereg? > I think *Kiera* is supposed to be Cawti. [snip] Awwww! And I thought we were going to have some sort of Grudge Match style smackdown or something. :( Of course, what I'd rather see is not Kiera vs. Cawti, but maybe Kiera vs. Mechakiera... Hmmm... Never noticed that before, but it definitely looks like you're right. Cawti was the one supposed to take out Mellar's guard. I'll have to check this in my copy at home and see if I've always missed that, or if maybe it was corrected in later prints. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From books at bofh.com Fri Feb 6 14:03:49 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 15:03:49 -0700 Subject: Slashdot sighting.... Message-ID: <20040206220349.GA28663@bofh.com> The current slashdot poll: Best hand-to-hand weapon o Light saber o Vorpal sword o Batleth o Adamantium claws o Minbari fighting pike o Mica's barstool <----- o Sting o Lock-in-a-sock -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From bio_phy at hotmail.com Fri Feb 6 15:03:44 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 17:03:44 -0600 Subject: Slashdot sighting.... Message-ID: Well, I'll be... johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >From: Jot Powers >Reply-To: Jot Powers >To: dragaera at dragaera.info >Subject: Slashdot sighting.... >Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 15:03:49 -0700 > >The current slashdot poll: > >Best hand-to-hand weapon > >o Light saber >o Vorpal sword >o Batleth >o Adamantium claws >o Minbari fighting pike >o Mica's barstool <----- >o Sting >o Lock-in-a-sock > >-Jot > > >-- >Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ >"I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" > -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan _________________________________________________________________ Optimize your Internet experience to the max with the new MSN Premium Internet Software. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200359ave/direct/01/ From bryann at bryann.net Sat Feb 7 01:06:59 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 03:06:59 -0600 Subject: Vlad vs Kelly, revisited Message-ID: I realize it's a bit late to be throwing in my 2 cents, but I just recently joined the group, and I'm getting caught up on old entries. First of all, neither Kelly or Vlad is immoral, as I understand the word. To be immoral would require that you delibrately act against someone else's sense of morality (and I think it implies a bit of malice). Kelly is moral in general, and amoral in specific. People entrust their wellbeing to Kelly, he does everything he can to improve their lives as a whole, regardless of the impact it has on them individually. Vlad is moral in specific and amoral in general. People entrust their wellbeing to Vlad, he does everything he can to keep each one of them safe and well, regardless of the overall affect this might have. I admire Vlad's morality more. I don't believe we can really ever know anything in any absolute sense of the word (*), but experience feels closer to knowledge than theory (not that I'm saying that senses are any more infallible than thought, but senses seem to be more directly in touch with reality than thought... nevermind, this argument goes on forever). Vlad's morality is applied to each individual based on his judgement of them, which is based on his experience of them, and changes as he learns more about them. In other words, his prejudices never apply to individuals (except when he doesn't know them). Dragaerans are "bad", but he is intensely loyal to individual Dragaerans ("Jhereg" is a tour de force of applied loyalty, as Vlad does everything he can NOT to betray his friends, most obviously Morrolan, even though it makes his goal that much harder to achieve... I think that Kelly would betray Paresh or Cawti in a second if he thought it would achieve his goal). Kelly's morality is based on a generality. He presumes to know the situation, feelings, hopes, and dreams of thousands of people, without ever bothering to get to know them individually. He can't look at them individually; it's an inherent problem with idealism. An ideal is a "best solution". And no one solution can solve every problem, so you're forced to view the world as a single problem (btw, yes, I am a recovering (but not cynical... I don't think) idealist). Perhaps that last statement is a bit harsh, but nowhere do we see Kelly offering more than his one "ideal" solution, and he only acknowledges one problem: Easterners and Teckla are good but oppressed, everyone else is bad and oppressive. No exceptions mentioned. The only solution is to get the Easterners and Teckla on equal footing with the rest of the Empire. Even though this clearly implies that those "at the top" will have to suffer a lowering of lifestyle, but again, it's not what happens to the individuals that counts... Anyway, I guess that's more like 3 or 4 cents worth. :) Bryan (*) see http://bryann.net/cgi-bin/main?content=moosism.web for a brief explanation of why I believe this. From bryann at bryann.net Sat Feb 7 01:32:03 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 03:32:03 -0600 Subject: Teckla 2.0 Message-ID: I recently reread "Teckla" for the first time since it originally came out (I freely admit it is my least favorite of Mr. Brust's works), and I found that it was quite a different book than I remembered. I though the book was advocating "Vlad good, Kelly bad", but upon rereading, I think I got it backwards. If this was obvious to everyone else, well, it wouldn't be the first time... Kelly is portrayed as a fairly unoffensive character. The worst thing he does is chew out Cawti (well, unless you disagree with his entire ideology, which I do). The suprising thing I noticed on rereading was that Vlad appears, at times, to be reduced to nothing but a Socratic foil: Kelly states a belief, and Vlad reacts in a manner that, BY COMPARISON, makes Kelly's beliefs appear reasonable (or at least more level-headed). If you hadn't noticed, reread the parts of "Teckla" that involve Vlad and Kelly talking to one another. Kelly states a moral principle, and Vlad responds by... threatening him... saying something sarcastic and off-point, or just plain dumb. Compare and contrast his offer of gold to Sethra in "Taltos"... now _there_ was a brilliant, to-the-point use of sarcasm. I guess the whole Cawti thing had Vlad's wit distracted... Incidentaly, Vlad's line to Sethra in "Taltos" is my 2nd favorite line in all of Brust's books... my favorite being Morrolan's response to Paarfi's--I mean, Fentor's--reluctance to get to the point in "The Lord of Castle Black", page 196 of the hardcover: 'Morrolan groaned softly, clenched and unclenched his fist, then said, very carefully...' I swear to you, I was groaning and clenching and unclenching my hand as I read that very line... Bryan ...wait, that's NOT what I meant! From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Sat Feb 7 10:01:15 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 10:01:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: Slashdot sighting.... In-Reply-To: <20040206220349.GA28663@bofh.com> Message-ID: <20040207180115.71529.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> > o Mica's barstool <----- Kick ass, dude! Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From mklahn at mac.com Sat Feb 7 10:29:09 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 12:29:09 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry Message-ID: <84F5ABAA-599B-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> Sounds to me like someone needs a Mac... Not just because I'm a Mac OS X developer, and therefore biased, but overall I think Macs are great machines that have the easiest-to-set-up X11 environment. So, if the rumors I hear are true, and Mr. Brust uses Emacs to write novels, Mac OS X seems like a natural, stable, well-supported computer platform. Though, maybe a touch pricey if you want the biggest & best Mac. But really, for a writer, a $1100 12" sub-notebook might just be usable enough for what you want. Ah, well. Maybe I just want to see Steve in a "switcher" ad*: "My name's Steven Brust, and I play poker and write books." -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com *Yes, I know they aren't making or airing these anymore. But one can dream, right?! From azarule at hotmail.com Sat Feb 7 10:45:16 2004 From: azarule at hotmail.com (David Gunderson) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 18:45:16 +0000 Subject: Brust weblog entry Message-ID: I'm a PC user all the way...but I do agree with what the inventor of "Control-Alt-Delete" said at a recent conference : "I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous." And let's be fair, some of those pre-built computers are made to suck. I built my own, and have about 1/10 as many problems as most people who buy theirs from Dell or Gateway (shudder). --------------------------------------------------------------------- |If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended: you | |have but slumbered here while these visions did appear. And this | |weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream. Gentles, do not | |reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend. | --------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: Matthew Klahn >To: dragaera List >Subject: Brust weblog entry >Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 12:29:09 -0600 > >Sounds to me like someone needs a Mac... Not just because I'm a Mac OS X >developer, and therefore biased, but overall I think Macs are great >machines that have the easiest-to-set-up X11 environment. So, if the rumors >I hear are true, and Mr. Brust uses Emacs to write novels, Mac OS X seems >like a natural, stable, well-supported computer platform. Though, maybe a >touch pricey if you want the biggest & best Mac. But really, for a writer, >a $1100 12" sub-notebook might just be usable enough for what you want. > >Ah, well. Maybe I just want to see Steve in a "switcher" ad*: "My name's >Steven Brust, and I play poker and write books." > >-- >Matthew S. Klahn >Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. >http://www.codetek.com > >*Yes, I know they aren't making or airing these anymore. But one can dream, >right?! > _________________________________________________________________ Create your own personal Web page with the info you use most, at My MSN. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200364ave/direct/01/ From warlord at dragon.com Sat Feb 7 12:29:32 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 15:29:32 -0500 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm a PC user as well. Gateway wasn't bad, back in the day, but now.... I'm building my own now. High end intel motherboard, P4/ 3.+ multithread, 2GB dual channel memory, raided SATA drives. Control-alt-delete is going to work *fast* :) W "I've never used a MAC, but I understand they emulate Windows pretty well." > -----Original Message----- > From: David Gunderson [mailto:azarule at hotmail.com] > Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 1:45 PM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: RE: Brust weblog entry > > > I'm a PC user all the way...but I do agree with what the inventor of > "Control-Alt-Delete" said at a recent conference : "I may have > invented it, > but Bill made it famous." > > And let's be fair, some of those pre-built computers are made to suck. I > built my own, and have about 1/10 as many problems as most people who buy > theirs from Dell or Gateway (shudder). > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > |If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended: you | > |have but slumbered here while these visions did appear. And this | > |weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream. Gentles, do not | > |reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend. | > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > >From: Matthew Klahn > >To: dragaera List > >Subject: Brust weblog entry > >Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 12:29:09 -0600 > > > >Sounds to me like someone needs a Mac... Not just because I'm a Mac OS X > >developer, and therefore biased, but overall I think Macs are great > >machines that have the easiest-to-set-up X11 environment. So, if > the rumors > >I hear are true, and Mr. Brust uses Emacs to write novels, Mac > OS X seems > >like a natural, stable, well-supported computer platform. > Though, maybe a > >touch pricey if you want the biggest & best Mac. But really, for > a writer, > >a $1100 12" sub-notebook might just be usable enough for what you want. > > > >Ah, well. Maybe I just want to see Steve in a "switcher" ad*: "My name's > >Steven Brust, and I play poker and write books." > > > >-- > >Matthew S. Klahn > >Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > >http://www.codetek.com > > > >*Yes, I know they aren't making or airing these anymore. But one > can dream, > >right?! > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Create your own personal Web page with the info you use most, at My MSN. > http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200364ave/direct/01/ > > > From bio_phy at hotmail.com Sat Feb 7 12:43:23 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 14:43:23 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry Message-ID: Hm. I think I can sum up my feelings in one word: noooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Thank you. ;) johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa >From: Matthew Klahn >To: dragaera List >Subject: Brust weblog entry >Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 12:29:09 -0600 > >Sounds to me like someone needs a Mac... Not just because I'm a Mac OS X >developer, and therefore biased, but overall I think Macs are great >machines that have the easiest-to-set-up X11 environment. So, if the rumors >I hear are true, and Mr. Brust uses Emacs to write novels, Mac OS X seems >like a natural, stable, well-supported computer platform. Though, maybe a >touch pricey if you want the biggest & best Mac. But really, for a writer, >a $1100 12" sub-notebook might just be usable enough for what you want. > >Ah, well. Maybe I just want to see Steve in a "switcher" ad*: "My name's >Steven Brust, and I play poker and write books." > >-- >Matthew S. Klahn >Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. >http://www.codetek.com > >*Yes, I know they aren't making or airing these anymore. But one can dream, >right?! > _________________________________________________________________ Choose now from 4 levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage - no more account overload! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/ From jalipaz at stanford.edu Sat Feb 7 13:08:59 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 13:08:59 -0800 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I am a mac user, and it's pc that emulate mac's ! I love my mac, and the bonous is that noone ever writes viruses that cause us problems! You can just ignore all the virus warnings and hoopla ! jaa > > >"I've never used a MAC, but I understand they emulate Windows pretty well." From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Sat Feb 7 13:18:35 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 13:18:35 -0800 Subject: Slashdot sighting.... In-Reply-To: <20040206220349.GA28663@bofh.com> References: <20040206220349.GA28663@bofh.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 6 Feb 2004 15:03:49 -0700, you wrote: >The current slashdot poll: > >Best hand-to-hand weapon > >o Light saber >o Vorpal sword >o Batleth >o Adamantium claws >o Minbari fighting pike >o Mica's barstool <----- >o Sting >o Lock-in-a-sock > Now that is beyond cool. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Sat Feb 7 13:22:30 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 13:22:30 -0800 Subject: Teckla 2.0 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 03:32:03 -0600, you wrote: >I recently reread "Teckla" for the first time since it originally came out >(I freely admit it is my least favorite of Mr. Brust's works), and I found >that it was quite a different book than I remembered. My problem with reading Teckla is that Steve is too damned good a writer. He captured the emotions of a marriage's breaking apart so perfectly, reading that book actually takes me back to the time of my divorce. It can be very difficult to read. And, for added bizarre coincidence value: My ex-wife took the name "Aliera" for her SCA persona. She had an affair with a guy who used the name "Vlad" in the SCA, then later with a guy named Steve. And after our divorce, she got a job as a waitress at The Blue Flame Grill. I kid you not, it's in a small town in southern Alabama. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From feaelin at kemenel.org Sat Feb 7 13:42:01 2004 From: feaelin at kemenel.org (Iain E. Davis) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 15:42:01 -0600 Subject: Teckla 2.0 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040207153919.01b1fc68@kemenel.org> At 03:22 PM 2/7/2004, you wrote: >On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 03:32:03 -0600, you wrote: > > >I recently reread "Teckla" for the first time since it originally came out > >(I freely admit it is my least favorite of Mr. Brust's works), and I found > >that it was quite a different book than I remembered. > >My problem with reading Teckla is that Steve is too damned good a >writer. He captured the emotions of a marriage's breaking apart so >perfectly, reading that book actually takes me back to the time of my >divorce. It can be very difficult to read. Actually, it is written so well, that even if one hasn't been through a divorce, you can see how "it could happen to me/you!". I've always had a tough time reading Teckla, finding it pretty depressing. :/ Iain From mklahn at mac.com Sat Feb 7 14:18:58 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 16:18:58 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 7, 2004, at 14:29 , Warlord wrote: > I'm a PC user as well. Gateway wasn't bad, back in the day, but now.... > I'm building my own now. High end intel motherboard, P4/ 3.+ > multithread, > 2GB dual channel memory, raided SATA drives. Control-alt-delete is > going to work *fast* :) > > W > > "I've never used a MAC, but I understand they emulate Windows pretty > well." Actually, Windows licensed it's "look and feel" from Apple, way back in 1985, I believe. This was a spectacularly dumb idea by then CEO Sculley, who gave Microsoft carte blanche to copy anything they wanted >from the Mac GUI in future software products. References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows http://bitter.custard.org/mac/hist/ Anyway, not to start a Mac/PC flamewar, since it's so completely off-topic to this list, but I thought that you might want to learn a little history. For those people that don't want to have to build their own PC, Macs are great computers. For those who want a UNIX environment and don't want to build their own OS, Mac OS X is a great OS. For those who want to have their system lock up on a weekly basis, and want to have to reinstall their OS on a bi-monthly basis, there's Windows. In fact, one reason that PC users need 3 GHz+ processors is so they can get work done while their machine is constantly scanned for viruses... :) -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From pulmon at comcast.net Sat Feb 7 14:25:27 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:25:27 -0500 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> We clearly need to get our chickens and eggs straight. The Mac was the first PC with a graphical user interface. It launched in 1984 (see famous ad on Apple.com web site). It was the first popular computer to use the mouse (which had been patented by Xerox in the 1970s). Gates' raiders had their hands on early Macs to write software, and clearly the "chinese wall" developed holes. Gates launched windows version 1, 2, 3, 95, 98, NT, Me, 2000, and by version XP seems to have successfully copied much of the technique Jobs introduced in 1984. Mac then introduced OSX, which uses UNIX as its engine. It is stable and easy to use. I have had to use Windows computers at work because businesses separate capital expenditure from personnel costs. Windows machines are much cheaper than Macs. However, they break down/crash/screw up so often that companies hire entire departments to manage their defects. One senior IT professional I know said that if his company went mac he would have to lay off 1/3 of his staff. I own two G4 machines (powerbook and iMac), and 3 G3 machines (2 imacs and a powerbook). Two of these machines have had to go into the shop one time each over the past 4 years. I had a Dell PC that I bought for work in 1997. It was in the shop quarterly until I quit the job that required it and was able to retire the damn thing. Macs are easier to use, more stable, and do everything you need. I only know 2 people who have used both Mac and PC extensively and prefer PCs. They are married to each other and each has an IQ > 180. They are frustrated by macs because they are too simple. For the rest of us, Macs are a far more cost-effective way to spend computer dollars. On Feb 7, 2004, at 4:08 PM, Julie Alipaz wrote: > > I am a mac user, and it's pc that emulate mac's ! I love my mac, and > the bonous is that noone ever writes viruses that cause us problems! > You can just ignore all the virus warnings and hoopla ! > > jaa > > >> >> >> "I've never used a MAC, but I understand they emulate Windows pretty >> well." > From rone at ennui.org Sat Feb 7 14:32:47 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 14:32:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <0HSJ00DAG84HSK@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20040207223247.F04DE26C5F@boredom.ennui.org> Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod writes: Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was using Usenet or NNTP serives. Another warning to newbies: Please don't top-post. It's like writing an answer before a question. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From warlord at dragon.com Sat Feb 7 14:46:24 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:46:24 -0500 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Kenneth Gorelick [mailto:pulmon at comcast.net] > Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 5:25 PM > To: Julie Alipaz > Cc: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Brust weblog entry > > > We clearly need to get our chickens and eggs straight. The Mac was the > first PC with a graphical user interface. It launched in 1984 (see > famous ad on Apple.com web site). It was the first popular computer to > use the mouse (which had been patented by Xerox in the 1970s). Gates' > raiders had their hands on early Macs to write software, and clearly > the "chinese wall" developed holes. Gates launched windows version 1, > 2, 3, 95, 98, NT, Me, 2000, and by version XP seems to have > successfully copied much of the technique Jobs introduced in 1984. Mac > then introduced OSX, which uses UNIX as its engine. It is stable and > easy to use. > > I have had to use Windows computers at work because businesses separate > capital expenditure from personnel costs. Windows machines are much > cheaper than Macs. However, they break down/crash/screw up so often > that companies hire entire departments to manage their defects. One > senior IT professional I know said that if his company went mac he > would have to lay off 1/3 of his staff. > > I own two G4 machines (powerbook and iMac), and 3 G3 machines (2 imacs > and a powerbook). Two of these machines have had to go into the shop > one time each over the past 4 years. I had a Dell PC that I bought for > work in 1997. It was in the shop quarterly until I quit the job that > required it and was able to retire the damn thing. > > Macs are easier to use, more stable, and do everything you need. I only > know 2 people who have used both Mac and PC extensively and prefer PCs. > They are married to each other and each has an IQ > 180. They are > frustrated by macs because they are too simple. > > For the rest of us, Macs are a far more cost-effective way to spend > computer dollars. > On Feb 7, 2004, at 4:08 PM, Julie Alipaz wrote: > > > > > I am a mac user, and it's pc that emulate mac's ! I love my mac, and > > the bonous is that noone ever writes viruses that cause us problems! > > You can just ignore all the virus warnings and hoopla ! > > > > jaa > > > > > >> > >> > >> "I've never used a MAC, but I understand they emulate Windows pretty > >> well." > > > > > Based on the above, I submit that my skill at deadpan has now achieved master-class status. W "I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly, but you have elected the way of pain!" --Saruman, speaking for sysadmins everywhere From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Sat Feb 7 14:45:28 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:45:28 -0500 Subject: Slashdot sighting.... In-Reply-To: <20040206220349.GA28663@bofh.com> References: <20040206220349.GA28663@bofh.com> Message-ID: <20040207224528.GA23338@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Feb 06, 2004 at 03:03:49PM -0700, Jot Powers wrote: > The current slashdot poll: . . . > o Mica's barstool <----- Yeah, and only 1% are voting for it. Oh, the shame. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From holden at oddjob.uchicago.edu Sat Feb 7 14:45:51 2004 From: holden at oddjob.uchicago.edu (Bradford Holden) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 16:45:51 -0600 Subject: Teckla 2.0 In-Reply-To: <1076192406.11036.ezmlm@dragaera.info>; from dragaera-digest-help@dragaera.info on Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 10:20:06PM -0000 References: <1076192406.11036.ezmlm@dragaera.info> Message-ID: <20040207164551.A3249@oddjob.uchicago.edu> > From: "Bryan Newell" > > I recently reread "Teckla" for the first time since it originally came out > (I freely admit it is my least favorite of Mr. Brust's works), and I found > that it was quite a different book than I remembered. I had the same experience on my second rereading. The first time I read it the grief of the breakup seemed to overwhelm anything else in the story. I think a lot of bitterness about that gets placed on Kelly's shoulders, for no fault of his. > > The suprising thing I noticed on rereading was that Vlad appears, at times, > to be reduced to nothing but a Socratic foil: Kelly states a belief, and > Vlad reacts in a manner that, BY COMPARISON, makes Kelly's beliefs appear > reasonable (or at least more level-headed). If you hadn't noticed, reread > the parts of "Teckla" that involve Vlad and Kelly talking to one another. > Kelly states a moral principle, and Vlad responds by... threatening him... > saying something sarcastic and off-point, or just plain dumb. In my opinion, Kelly is a little too perfect. I figured that Brust was writing a character that had views very close to that of the author's. That makes it hard for the author to have the character make a mistake. There are parts, though, where it seems that Brust is arguing with Vlad, instead of Kelly. This is very common in most sf and fantasy. Because of Brust's ability to make his characters unique and self-consistent instead of either foils or voices of the author, I found this particular slip a bit surprising. I guess I am just spoiled. The really important thing about Teckla, though, is that it is the start of Vlad's big growth as a person. You have to read it to understand what happens later. I also think that stylistically, the books change after Teckla as well. This is not really apparent until I read (or reread) Dragon. In that book we are suppose to see the old Vlad but it does not feel quite right to me. All of this comes out after only, say, the third or fourth rereading.... No, I am not an addict, I an quit anytime I want to...I just don't want to.... -- Bradford Holden "It is the Casablanca of dystopias!" - A. McDaniel on _We_ by Yevgeny Zamyatin From bio_phy at hotmail.com Sat Feb 7 14:41:20 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 16:41:20 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry Message-ID: My XP-Pro PC hasn't locked up in years. I *like* the ability to be able to build my own rig, upgrade it myself as I see fit, and play the latest games on the day of release. Don't get me wrong - I think OS-X is very cool, it's just too expensive for this gamer. If I were going to use a non-Windows OS, I'd probably go Xandros 2.0 since BeOS is effectively defunct. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa aerie blog: http://aeriepress.blogspot.com/ "Well, God bless your crooked little heart..." Tom Waits, Mule Variations >For those people that don't want to have to build their own PC, Macs are >great computers. For those who want a UNIX environment and don't want to >build their own OS, Mac OS X is a great OS. For those who want to have >their system lock up on a weekly basis, and want to have to reinstall their >OS on a bi-monthly basis, there's Windows. In fact, one reason that PC >users need 3 GHz+ processors is so they can get work done while their >machine is constantly scanned for viruses... :) > >-- >Matthew S. Klahn >Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. >http://www.codetek.com > _________________________________________________________________ Optimize your Internet experience to the max with the new MSN Premium Internet Software. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200359ave/direct/01/ From warlord at dragon.com Sat Feb 7 14:48:45 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:48:45 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <20040207223247.F04DE26C5F@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: rone [mailto:rone at ennui.org] > Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 5:33 PM > To: SKZB List > Subject: Re: warning to newbies > > > Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod writes: > Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails > automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was > using Usenet > or NNTP serives. > > Another warning to newbies: Please don't top-post. It's like writing > an answer before a question. > Yes, this is very dangerous and would put us all on Jeopardy. W "I thought I had an appetite for destruction, but all I wanted was a club sandwich." --Homer Simpson From rone at ennui.org Sat Feb 7 15:13:12 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 15:13:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040207231312.1141126C5C@boredom.ennui.org> Kenneth Gorelick writes: Macs are easier to use, more stable, and do everything you need. I only know 2 people who have used both Mac and PC extensively and prefer PCs. They are married to each other and each has an IQ > 180. They are frustrated by macs because they are too simple. Then maybe they should just be using UNIX instead. Using Windows because they're complex isn't smart; it's a sign of masochism. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From gomi at pollywog.com Sat Feb 7 15:26:42 2004 From: gomi at pollywog.com (Paul Echeverri) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 15:26:42 -0800 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <20040207231312.1141126C5C@boredom.ennui.org> References: <20040207231312.1141126C5C@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 15:13:12 -0800 (PST), rone wrote: > Kenneth Gorelick writes: > Macs are easier to use, more stable, and do everything you need. I only > know 2 people who have used both Mac and PC extensively and prefer PCs. > They are married to each other and each has an IQ > 180. They are > frustrated by macs because they are too simple. > > Then maybe they should just be using UNIX instead. Using Windows > because they're complex isn't smart; it's a sign of masochism. responding before inevitable 'MacOS X _is_ UNIX, really' canard reply. pe From dar at horusinc.com Sat Feb 7 15:33:39 2004 From: dar at horusinc.com (David Rodemaker) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:33:39 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Kenneth Gorelick writes: > > Macs are easier to use, more stable, and do everything you need. I > only > > know 2 people who have used both Mac and PC extensively and prefer > PCs. > > They are married to each other and each has an IQ > 180. They are > > frustrated by macs because they are too simple. > > > > Then maybe they should just be using UNIX instead. Using Windows > > because they're complex isn't smart; it's a sign of masochism. > > responding before inevitable 'MacOS X _is_ UNIX, really' canard reply. Personally, the whole series has been ruined now that I find out that St. Brust isn't writing this out longhand with quill and parchment... David From michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com Sat Feb 7 15:29:32 2004 From: michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com (Michael Angelo Tripp-Russo) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 17:29:32 -0600 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots was Re: Brust weblog entry References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> > For the rest of us, Macs are a far more cost-effective way to spend > computer dollars. Yeah, okay great more Mac VS PC stuff. Macs *are* PC's which are platform specific to "Macintosh OSes" PC simply means "Personal Computer" What most people call PC's they *mean* X86 or IBM Compatible, etc. Which for the most part run "MS Windows OSes" but are not limited to only that. Considering 9/10's of consumer software and 7/10's of consumer hardware is only compatible (as in compiled for) with the open X86 hardware platform it isn't surprising that most people use that platform, the fact that there is some debate about which "Platform" is better is surprising. X86/ IMB Compatible is guaranteed more likely to be able to do what you want, develop what you want or buy x part for what you want than the MAC platform. Macintosh is a closed platform as in Apple is the only company that makes the computers, they tried to open up the standards long ago with the power pc stuff and they failed to capture enough of the market to make a difference. Staying a closed system where they can test the hardware with the software before selling the machines is a lot like the same way that video game consoles are made. Since they control the Hardware and the Main software that will run on it (the OS) they will appear more stable than compared to Windows running on hardware made by 20 different manufacturers. I think it is amazing that windows even runs *at all*. The difference is that we are in fact not comparing Apples to Apples when comparing Mac OS and Win OSes to begin with. They may both be PC's and both do very similar things for the user but they are built to do things wildly differently. When you say "Macs are a far more cost-effective way to spend computer dollars" it is a very deceptive statement, because the hardware is generally more expensive, you have access to far less software, and if you need any of that *other* hardware or software you can't even use it. Don't think that if the software is a big enough seller that the vendor will decide to make a alternate version for Macs just because there is a potential 10% more of the market to gain, this just isn't true; vendors will ignore the Mac platform because it is generally considered irrelevant. Someone said something about not having to deal with viruses on Mac, if Mac was the dominant OS the virus writers would start writing them for Macs that is the way a virus writer thinks, make the virus affect as many people/machines as possible (which is another reason why viruses usually don't destroy your machine, if they did they would be less able to infect other machines and the viruses eventually dies because it kills all of its hosts) There is no technical reason that Macs are less prone to viruses it is simply because there are so many more written for Windows boxes that you see a drastic difference (Granted it is farily easy to write a virus to interact with Windows, all you've got to do is get the code to execute on the win box). Macs work, and have a very specific reason for existing, but as far as myself and a vast majority of computer users it is in fact incapable of doing what we want from our computer (without insane money, as money solves most technical problems) and is therefore not appealing to us. And just to note, I hate, I mean even *Loathe* Windows but can see very clearly that it is where all the software I want is, except in cases where it runs on a Unix/Linux server in which case the x86 hardware being cheaper keeps me from ever even considering Macs as a useful solution. I'm waiting for total windows application emmulation under Linux, then I will likely have found the most open platform OS, and can run most of the PC software made, and can use (then simply a matter of drivers) most hardware made. Thus causing me the least amount of pain to change the way I use my computer, moving to mac would be like throwing away all of my software liscenses, just to pay more and do less. (but to do those things more stably, I suppose) From pulmon at comcast.net Sat Feb 7 15:29:48 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 18:29:48 -0500 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <851C4282-59C5-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Yes, you and Aibynn can go perform in Dead Pan Alley! On Feb 7, 2004, at 5:46 PM, Warlord wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Kenneth Gorelick [mailto:pulmon at comcast.net] >> Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 5:25 PM >> To: Julie Alipaz >> Cc: dragaera at dragaera.info >> Subject: Re: Brust weblog entry >> >> >> We clearly need to get our chickens and eggs straight. The Mac was the >> first PC with a graphical user interface. It launched in 1984 (see >> famous ad on Apple.com web site). It was the first popular computer to >> use the mouse (which had been patented by Xerox in the 1970s). Gates' >> raiders had their hands on early Macs to write software, and clearly >> the "chinese wall" developed holes. Gates launched windows version 1, >> 2, 3, 95, 98, NT, Me, 2000, and by version XP seems to have >> successfully copied much of the technique Jobs introduced in 1984. Mac >> then introduced OSX, which uses UNIX as its engine. It is stable and >> easy to use. >> >> I have had to use Windows computers at work because businesses >> separate >> capital expenditure from personnel costs. Windows machines are much >> cheaper than Macs. However, they break down/crash/screw up so often >> that companies hire entire departments to manage their defects. One >> senior IT professional I know said that if his company went mac he >> would have to lay off 1/3 of his staff. >> >> I own two G4 machines (powerbook and iMac), and 3 G3 machines (2 imacs >> and a powerbook). Two of these machines have had to go into the shop >> one time each over the past 4 years. I had a Dell PC that I bought for >> work in 1997. It was in the shop quarterly until I quit the job that >> required it and was able to retire the damn thing. >> >> Macs are easier to use, more stable, and do everything you need. I >> only >> know 2 people who have used both Mac and PC extensively and prefer >> PCs. >> They are married to each other and each has an IQ > 180. They are >> frustrated by macs because they are too simple. >> >> For the rest of us, Macs are a far more cost-effective way to spend >> computer dollars. >> On Feb 7, 2004, at 4:08 PM, Julie Alipaz wrote: >> >>> >>> I am a mac user, and it's pc that emulate mac's ! I love my mac, >>> and >>> the bonous is that noone ever writes viruses that cause us problems! >>> You can just ignore all the virus warnings and hoopla ! >>> >>> jaa >>> >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> "I've never used a MAC, but I understand they emulate Windows pretty >>>> well." >>> >> >> >> > > Based on the above, I submit that my skill at deadpan has > now achieved master-class status. > > W > > > "I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly, but you have elected > the way of pain!" --Saruman, speaking for sysadmins everywhere > > > From matthew at infodancer.org Sat Feb 7 15:40:31 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:40:31 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <20040207231312.1141126C5C@boredom.ennui.org> References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <20040207231312.1141126C5C@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: <20040207234031.GB7676@infodancer.org> On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 03:13:12PM -0800, rone wrote: > Kenneth Gorelick writes: > Macs are easier to use, more stable, and do everything you need. I only > know 2 people who have used both Mac and PC extensively and prefer PCs. > They are married to each other and each has an IQ > 180. They are > frustrated by macs because they are too simple. > Then maybe they should just be using UNIX instead. Using Windows > because they're complex isn't smart; it's a sign of masochism. I've been trying to keep my nose out of this, but UNIX can run on PCs. A "PC" is a hardware platform, or more accurately, a widely-produced, mostly-compatible hardware platform based on the x86 architecture and IBM's original thrown-together "personal computer". Don't sneer at PC users; the hardware platform wasn't exactly a miracle of original design, but these days it isn't bad at all, and the price is hard to beat. There are hardware platforms I would want more -- I think the PowerPC processors are better designed -- but I'm not willing to pay more in order to be locked into the Mac operating system. Sneer at Microsoft users all you want; they deserve it. I will also note for the record that I have used Macs, both before and after OS X, and don't like using either. Their user interface always makes an effort to get in my way. I can see how people whose business is not working with computers like them, but I can hardly stand to use one for more than a few minutes. I feel pretty much the same about windows. Strangely enough, I'm one of those users for whom UNIX (specifically, Linux) gets the interface *right*. If someone would get their act together and release an open-hardware, PowerPC based system optimized for Linux, I'd be there in a heartbeat. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From pulmon at comcast.net Sat Feb 7 15:42:03 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 18:42:03 -0500 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3B0C2664-59C7-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Nonetheless, the manuscripts are truly illuminated! On Feb 7, 2004, at 6:33 PM, David Rodemaker wrote: >>> Kenneth Gorelick writes: >>> Macs are easier to use, more stable, and do everything you need. I >> only >>> know 2 people who have used both Mac and PC extensively and prefer >> PCs. >>> They are married to each other and each has an IQ > 180. They are >>> frustrated by macs because they are too simple. >>> >>> Then maybe they should just be using UNIX instead. Using Windows >>> because they're complex isn't smart; it's a sign of masochism. >> >> responding before inevitable 'MacOS X _is_ UNIX, really' canard reply. > > Personally, the whole series has been ruined now that I find out that > St. > Brust isn't writing this out longhand with quill and parchment... > > David > > From pulmon at comcast.net Sat Feb 7 15:52:50 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 18:52:50 -0500 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> Message-ID: On Feb 7, 2004, at 6:29 PM, Michael Angelo Tripp-Russo wrote: >> For the rest of us, Macs are a far more cost-effective way to spend >> computer dollars. > > Yeah, okay great more Mac VS PC stuff. > > Macs *are* PC's which are platform specific to "Macintosh OSes" PC > simply means "Personal Computer" > > What most people call PC's they *mean* X86 or IBM Compatible, etc. > Which for the most part run "MS Windows OSes" but are not limited to > only that. > > > Considering 9/10's of consumer software and 7/10's of consumer > hardware is only compatible (as in compiled for) with the open X86 > hardware platform it isn't surprising that most people use that > platform, the fact that there is some debate about which "Platform" is > better is surprising. X86/ IMB Compatible is guaranteed more likely to > be able to do what you want, develop what you want or buy x part for > what you want than the MAC platform. > > When you say "Macs are a far more cost-effective way to spend computer > dollars" it is a very deceptive statement, because the hardware is > generally more expensive, you have access to far less software, and if > you need any of that *other* hardware or software you can't even use > it. Don't think that if the software is a big enough seller that the > vendor will decide to make a alternate version for Macs just because > there is a potential 10% more of the market to gain, this just isn't > true; vendors will ignore the Mac platform because it is generally > considered irrelevant. > most people use computers for writing or math or presentations. Most people use MS office. MS office is 100% compatible between Mac and PC, so most people can use either machine for both purposes. There is some highly specialized software (e.g., intellectual property, accounting) that is specific to PCs. Not many people need those. There is only one program that I wish would be available on Mac that is not--MS Project. However, I can use a windows emulator on my Mac when I need it. I have access to Photoshop, Acrobat, Quark, etc., plus a mac-only suite of digital-lifestyle apps that beat anything any of my friends have on their windows machines. And it is very easy to use. While the hardware is slightly more expensive (good entry mac with fast processer at $900, entry laptop at $1100) my personal experience is that it stays out of the shop. At $50-100/hour plus loss of consortium for days or weeks, that is a HUGE saving. A decrease of one repair trip per year covers the cost differential. I follow the software world to a limited degree, and except for Project there is nothing out there that even slightly wish to add to my mac. From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Sat Feb 7 15:54:00 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 15:54:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Brust weblog entry Message-ID: <200402072354.i17Ns0P24159@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> From: Matthew Hunter >I will also note for the record that I have used Macs, both >before and after OS X, and don't like using either. Their user >interface always makes an effort to get in my way. [...] > >Strangely enough, I'm one of those users for whom UNIX >(specifically, Linux) gets the interface *right*. You are aware, aren't you, that in OS X you can start up Terminal.app and have a tcsh command line? In fact, there are system directories available that way that aren't accessible at all through the GUI, so far as I've been able to tell. -- David Goldfarb <*>| goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | Private .sig -- please do not read. goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | From bio_phy at hotmail.com Sat Feb 7 16:10:26 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 18:10:26 -0600 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! Message-ID: >most people use computers for writing or math or presentations. Really? How many gamers do you see using computers for writing, math, *or* presentations? How about graphic artists? Web designers? Let's face it - computers are used in many different ways. If you want to be *really* inclusive, say "most people use computers for e-mail, im, IRC, or voice communication". Of course, none of those things are OS-specific. ;) >I follow the software world to a limited degree, and except for Project >there is nothing out there that even slightly wish to add to my mac. You're obviously not a gamer. There is no other platform for the serious gamer (sad to say). If Apple were to rectify the availability of the latest games, allow users to customize their own rigs the way you can with Wintel boxes, and cut prices for the more powerful hardware, I'd look at it. I'm not holding my breath. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa _________________________________________________________________ Optimize your Internet experience to the max with the new MSN Premium Internet Software. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200359ave/direct/01/ From michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com Sat Feb 7 16:23:51 2004 From: michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com (Michael Angelo Tripp-Russo) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 18:23:51 -0600 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> Message-ID: <40258197.90505@tripp-russo.com> > > most people use computers for writing or math or presentations. Most > people use MS office. MS office is 100% compatible between Mac and PC, > so most people can use either machine for both purposes. There is some > highly specialized software (e.g., intellectual property, accounting) > that is specific to PCs. Not many people need those. There is only one > program that I wish would be available on Mac that is not--MS Project. > However, I can use a windows emulator on my Mac when I need it. I have > access to Photoshop, Acrobat, Quark, etc., plus a mac-only suite of > digital-lifestyle apps that beat anything any of my friends have on > their windows machines. And it is very easy to use. > > While the hardware is slightly more expensive (good entry mac with > fast processer at $900, entry laptop at $1100) my personal experience > is that it stays out of the shop. At $50-100/hour plus loss of > consortium for days or weeks, that is a HUGE saving. A decrease of one > repair trip per year covers the cost differential. > > I follow the software world to a limited degree, and except for > Project there is nothing out there that even slightly wish to add to > my mac. > and 90% of the world disagrees with you. Not that I'm trying to say might is right. I use my computer for much more than you apparently. I own a network here at my house, and my PC is a general all around communication device as well. Later this year I'll be intergrating HDTV tuner card into one of the PC's and running a media server to get high quality content to many devices/pcs around the house. I've got specialized software that helps me mange Ebay listings/autcions, the DVR software (and hardware) are only compatible with this platform. I do use MS office like you but I use so much more and my computer is involved in my life in many other degrees, Gaming is another aspect that macintosh generally is again much more expensive (and not always available) and not as capable (generally). If you've been a "windows" user for any ammount of time and gone out looking for free/shareware/payware software you can find so many specialized pieces of software that do 1 task really well and help you save time and accomplish more than you ever thought possible with your computer. We use our "Pc" differently which is why you use the Mac and I don't, but you said it yourself there is something that you slightly would like to use that you can't. My point is why limit yourself? From matthew at infodancer.org Sat Feb 7 16:55:49 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 18:55:49 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <200402072354.i17Ns0P24159@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> References: <200402072354.i17Ns0P24159@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <20040208005549.GD7676@infodancer.org> On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 03:54:00PM -0800, David Goldfarb wrote: > From: Matthew Hunter > >I will also note for the record that I have used Macs, both > >before and after OS X, and don't like using either. Their user > >interface always makes an effort to get in my way. [...] > >Strangely enough, I'm one of those users for whom UNIX > >(specifically, Linux) gets the interface *right*. > You are aware, aren't you, that in OS X you can start up Terminal.app > and have a tcsh command line? In fact, there are system directories > available that way that aren't accessible at all through the GUI, so > far as I've been able to tell. Yes, I am aware of that. That is a major improvement over the past. But it doesn't make up for bizarre bouncing icons in glowing 3D that take up about 1/10th of the screen, and so on. Maybe it's configurable to be less annoying, but I won't know until I need to use one for long enough to find out in pure self-defense. I've always hated the Mac GUIs on their own merits, rather than simply because they lacked a command line. Adding a command line fixes a major flaw in the operating system, but doesn't fix the problems in the GUI. And to be honest, I doubt Apple sees them as "problems" that want "fixing"; taste varies. Most of my technical annoyances about Macs went away with OS X. Most of my user-experience annoyances about Macs are there by design. And so I don't see any point to specifically choosing a Mac when platforms that suit me better are available. If I'm forced to use a Mac, the command line is a benefit. But I'm not, and when I do need to support someone who uses a Mac, the odds are I'm not going to be supporting their use of the command line... -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From dd-b at dd-b.net Sat Feb 7 22:36:15 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 00:36:15 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> (Kenneth Gorelick's message of "Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:25:27 -0500") References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: Kenneth Gorelick writes: > One senior IT professional I know said that if his company > went mac he would have to lay off 1/3 of his staff. He can say that if he wants, but at my last company the 5 people who had Macs caused far more trouble than the rest of the company put together. And needed upgrading to new computers more often, too. And watching my friends with macs fight configuration issues, handle upgrades, an so forth and so on has convinced me that they aren't any cleaner than pcs. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Sat Feb 7 22:39:52 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 00:39:52 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <20040207234031.GB7676@infodancer.org> (Matthew Hunter's message of "Sat, 7 Feb 2004 17:40:31 -0600") References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <20040207231312.1141126C5C@boredom.ennui.org> <20040207234031.GB7676@infodancer.org> Message-ID: Matthew Hunter writes: > I will also note for the record that I have used Macs, both > before and after OS X, and don't like using either. Their user > interface always makes an effort to get in my way. I can see how > people whose business is not working with computers like them, > but I can hardly stand to use one for more than a few minutes. > I feel pretty much the same about windows. I know the feeling. I used a Mac at work before I'd ever *seen* a PC, let alone owned one, let alone seen windows on one. I tried to use it to generate some overhead projector transparencies for a presentation to salesmen. I found the paint program (and its user interface) totally opaque and incomprehensible; and of course the documentation was nonexistent. (The fact that Apple *advertised* shipping inadequate documentation as if it were a feature did predispose me to dislike the Mac, I must admit). I ended up making the slides on a mainframe graphics application that talked to a serial terminal with some minimal graphics commands, and then photographing the screen (since there was no way to get the thing to print). That was easier than beating the Mac into submission. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Sat Feb 7 22:43:15 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 22:43:15 -0800 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> <40258197.90505@tripp-russo.com> Message-ID: <000d01c3ee0e$d51100c0$6701a8c0@DELL1> > > > and 90% of the world disagrees with you. Not that I'm trying to say > might is right. I use my computer for much more than you apparently. I > own a network here at my house, and my PC is a general all around > communication device as well. Later this year I'll be intergrating HDTV > tuner card into one of the PC's and running a media server to get high > quality content to many devices/pcs around the house. I've got > specialized software that helps me mange Ebay listings/autcions, the DVR > software (and hardware) are only compatible with this platform. I do use > MS office like you but I use so much more and my computer is involved in > my life in many other degrees, Gaming is another aspect that macintosh > generally is again much more expensive (and not always available) and > not as capable (generally). If you've been a "windows" user for any > ammount of time and gone out looking for free/shareware/payware software > you can find so many specialized pieces of software that do 1 task > really well and help you save time and accomplish more than you ever > thought possible with your computer. > > We use our "Pc" differently which is why you use the Mac and I don't, > but you said it yourself there is something that you slightly would like > to use that you can't. My point is why limit yourself? > There's really no way to defend the Mac against the "PCs have all the games argument." They don't, it sucks, I deal. That point conceeded, every other example you gave is available for the Mac as well as the PC, in fact I've found better versions of several types of Programs for my Mac than my PC, notably a slideshow program to read Manga in. Like it has been said, the major draws of a Mac Over a PC are stabilty, ease of use, and superior operating system. While other brands of PCs have the advantage of cost effectiveness, upgradability, and gaming. A diehard gamer isn't going to use a Mac as his primary gaming machine true, however I think it's safe to say that currently a majority of the computer users use computers in some non-gaming function. Akodo Bob -uses both, would rather read From casey at the-bat.net Sun Feb 8 04:49:06 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 07:49:06 -0500 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <000d01c3ee0e$d51100c0$6701a8c0@DELL1> Message-ID: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> Akodo Bob wrote: > There's really no way to defend the Mac against the "PCs have > all the games argument." They don't, it sucks, I deal. That I'm a wintel user, mostly I buy Dells these days. I've used Macs enough that I can do what I need to with them, but the user interface is a bit frustratingly simplistic. My IQ isn't quite as high as 180, but even if I didn't need to maintain my Windows proficiency for work, my home platforms would still be x86. I have not seriously experimented with Linux, but it's hard to argue with the difference in bang for the buck between a Dell and a Mac. For about $1000 including Tax and shipping, I can get a good Dell Desktop with hardware comparable to a $1900 iMac (plus tax and shipping). I can also repair or upgrade the Dell myself with all replacement hardware being about 25-30% cheaper. Ironically two or three of my favorite games ever were Mac-only. The most notable was Marathon. Its sequel was ported to Windows but was a bit buggy. For those unfamiliar with it, it was a first person shooter that could be played solo or deathmatch style. It was considerably better than Doom, its contemporary on the wintel side. Casey Rousseau From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 8 08:27:01 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 08:27:01 -0800 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> References: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> Message-ID: <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> I disagree with a great deal of what you said, but you now have my undying and eternal respect for naming perhaps the greatest fps ever made, Marathon (1, 2 and Infinity). That game had the best plot of any computer game ever made in my humble opinion. The intricacies of its plot, its metaphysical questions are still being debated to this day at http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ to this day. Quite the amazing game. -Jeff On Feb 8, 2004, at 4:49 AM, Casey Rousseau wrote: > Akodo Bob wrote: >> There's really no way to defend the Mac against the "PCs have >> all the games argument." They don't, it sucks, I deal. That > > I'm a wintel user, mostly I buy Dells these days. I've used Macs > enough > that I can do what I need to with them, but the user interface is a bit > frustratingly simplistic. My IQ isn't quite as high as 180, but even > if I > didn't need to maintain my Windows proficiency for work, my home > platforms > would still be x86. I have not seriously experimented with Linux, but > it's > hard to argue with the difference in bang for the buck between a Dell > and a > Mac. > > For about $1000 including Tax and shipping, I can get a good Dell > Desktop > with hardware comparable to a $1900 iMac (plus tax and shipping). I > can > also repair or upgrade the Dell myself with all replacement hardware > being > about 25-30% cheaper. > > Ironically two or three of my favorite games ever were Mac-only. The > most > notable was Marathon. Its sequel was ported to Windows but was a bit > buggy. > For those unfamiliar with it, it was a first person shooter that could > be > played solo or deathmatch style. It was considerably better than > Doom, its > contemporary on the wintel side. > > Casey Rousseau > From mklahn at mac.com Sun Feb 8 09:40:32 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 11:40:32 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <20040207234031.GB7676@infodancer.org> References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <20040207231312.1141126C5C@boredom.ennui.org> <20040207234031.GB7676@infodancer.org> Message-ID: On Feb 7, 2004, at 17:40 , Matthew Hunter wrote: > > I've been trying to keep my nose out of this, but UNIX can run on > PCs. A "PC" is a hardware platform, or more accurately, a > widely-produced, mostly-compatible hardware platform based on the > x86 architecture and IBM's original thrown-together "personal > computer". Been there, done that. Running Linux was my bread & butter for years, and in fact, I had to fight to run Linux instead of Win NT 4.0 at a job where I was doing UNIX programming for a living, go figure. I've matured to the point where I know all the low-level crap that I want to about UNIX, and have long passed the point where I care to muck around with UNIX internals on a weekly basis. I _can_ do that if I want to on Mac OS X, but I don't _have_ to, which is a major improvement. And, user-land stuff in Linux/FreeBSD is a nightmare. If I never have to try to keep up with library X so I can run a decently stable version of applications Y and Z (that rely upon different minor versions of library X), I will be happy. In fact, I've recently had to do some X11 programming for Mac OS X (for work, not by choice), and therefore had to install GTK+ and a ton of other libraries just to get a newsreader to install. I swear I had to fix about 10 different libraries just so they would compile, and no they weren't porting problems. They were just your run-of-the-mill open source project problems: things half-implemented and that in a completely broken way. > Don't sneer at PC users; the hardware platform wasn't exactly a > miracle of original design, but these days it isn't bad at all, > and the price is hard to beat. There are hardware platforms I > would want more -- I think the PowerPC processors are better > designed -- but I'm not willing to pay more in order to be locked > into the Mac operating system. Price is hard to beat, but I use my computer to make money, not to make the computer work. In fact, I now (because of Linux) HATE mucking around with endless configuration files to tweak something just so it will work. One benefit of Mac OS X (and Windows) is that the environment is rather standard (for Windows, I mean for a given flavor), so I don't have to recompile a bunch of stuff just so it will work properly. Installing software via drag & drop is so much nicer than any mechanism in any Linux distro (RPM, dpkg, tgz) or having "DLL Hell" and registry problems on Windows. > Sneer at Microsoft users all you want; they deserve it. > > I will also note for the record that I have used Macs, both > before and after OS X, and don't like using either. Their user > interface always makes an effort to get in my way. I can see how > people whose business is not working with computers like them, > but I can hardly stand to use one for more than a few minutes. > I feel pretty much the same about windows. My buisness is not only working with computers, but also helping other people work with computers. Of course there are annoyances; you will find them on any platform. For me, the annoyances in Mac OS X are just that: annoyances. On Windows they were crippling and on Linux were merely tedious to the point of disgusting. And, most of the features of Mac OS X are configurable, since a lot of people like to customize their machines to the nth degree. You just need to do a little research on the platform, or buy an O'Reilly book or two (Mac OS X Hacks, for example, though all of this info is available for free on the web, if you want to do a little legwork). And don't try to argue that you wouldn't have to do any research on another UNIX system to do the same amount of customization: you're right. You'd have to do a lot more research through much worse documentation and be told "read the source code" a couple of dozen times if you have any questions. > Strangely enough, I'm one of those users for whom UNIX > (specifically, Linux) gets the interface *right*. If someone > would get their act together and release an open-hardware, > PowerPC based system optimized for Linux, I'd be there in a > heartbeat. Well, you do have roughly seventy gajillion interfaces to choose from, so I guess you've got me there. After messing around with the 30th interface that STILL doesn't work the way you want to, it gets tiresome... I, myself, progressed this way: WindowMaker -> Enlightenment -> IceWM -> BlackBox -> WindowMaker -> Sawfish -> Fluxbox -> WindowMaker; even though WM didn't do everything I wanted, it was good enough. Anyway, all this to say that while choice is good, if most of the choices are worse than getting poked in the forehead with a sharp stick, it's not good anymore. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From mklahn at mac.com Sun Feb 8 09:55:46 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 11:55:46 -0600 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> [Warning: top-posting only to remain consistent!] To back up the disagreement: You can replace most hardware in a Mac desktop that you'd care to replace. I think the only major part you'd have a hard time replacing is the processor (which IS still possible on the desktop side, though much more expensive than x86 processors, to be sure). Macs use IDE harddrives, standard RAM DIMMs and PCI or PCI-X cards in PowerMacs. Most Macs are really meant to use FireWire or USB (1 or 2, depending on how new your Mac is) for expansion so you don't HAVE to replace internal components. Mac laptops have PCMCIA, USB (1 or 2) and FireWire (400 or 800) for expansion. The $1900 iMac is a complete inaccuracy. I'm not going to do a comparison, because it's tedious, but iMacs range from $1299 to $2199, mostly depending on screen size (from 15" LCD to 20" LCD). And, there are eMacs ($799 and $1099) that probably do everything your $1000 Dell does. Games are the only place that Macs are really lagging, and that's mostly because of the economies of scale. Games are not huge money makers unless you sell many, many copies. Now, most games are moving to consoles because of the rampant piracy of PC games, and the commoditization of computer hardware. I would argue that if I want to play computer games, I'd be much better served to by a $300 console than a $1000 PC. And, I do play games (from Ghost Recon, UT2003 & Halo down to Angband) on my Mac, but I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a "hardcore" gamer. Not a priority for me, but I can see that it is for some people. And x86 PCs are just better at that than Macs, I agree. That doesn't detract from the value of Macs, as hardcore gamers are such a minority of computer users, just like racers are a minority of car drivers. And, Marathon was a great, though very difficult, game. Shame that Bungie sold Halo to Microsoft (or was Bungie itself sold to Microsoft?), or it would have come out on the Mac about 2-3 years ago. On Feb 8, 2004, at 10:27 , Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > I disagree with a great deal of what you said, but you now have my > undying and eternal respect for naming perhaps the greatest fps ever > made, Marathon (1, 2 and Infinity). That game had the best plot of > any computer game ever made in my humble opinion. The intricacies of > its plot, its metaphysical questions are still being debated to this > day at http://marathon.bungie.org/story/ to this day. Quite the > amazing game. > > -Jeff > > > On Feb 8, 2004, at 4:49 AM, Casey Rousseau wrote: > >> Akodo Bob wrote: >>> There's really no way to defend the Mac against the "PCs have >>> all the games argument." They don't, it sucks, I deal. That >> >> I'm a wintel user, mostly I buy Dells these days. I've used Macs >> enough >> that I can do what I need to with them, but the user interface is a >> bit >> frustratingly simplistic. My IQ isn't quite as high as 180, but even >> if I >> didn't need to maintain my Windows proficiency for work, my home >> platforms >> would still be x86. I have not seriously experimented with Linux, >> but it's >> hard to argue with the difference in bang for the buck between a Dell >> and a >> Mac. >> >> For about $1000 including Tax and shipping, I can get a good Dell >> Desktop >> with hardware comparable to a $1900 iMac (plus tax and shipping). I >> can >> also repair or upgrade the Dell myself with all replacement hardware >> being >> about 25-30% cheaper. >> >> Ironically two or three of my favorite games ever were Mac-only. The >> most >> notable was Marathon. Its sequel was ported to Windows but was a bit >> buggy. >> For those unfamiliar with it, it was a first person shooter that >> could be >> played solo or deathmatch style. It was considerably better than >> Doom, its >> contemporary on the wintel side. >> >> Casey Rousseau >> > > -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Sun Feb 8 10:10:11 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 10:10:11 -0800 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 11:55:46 -0600, you wrote: > >To back up the disagreement: You can replace most hardware in a Mac >desktop that you'd care to replace. I think the only major part you'd >have a hard time replacing is the processor (which IS still possible on >the desktop side, though much more expensive than x86 processors, to be >sure). Macs use IDE harddrives, standard RAM DIMMs and PCI or PCI-X >cards in PowerMacs. Most Macs are really meant to use FireWire or USB >(1 or 2, depending on how new your Mac is) for expansion so you don't >HAVE to replace internal components. Mac laptops have PCMCIA, USB (1 or >2) and FireWire (400 or 800) for expansion. I know nothing about this stuff, so I'm just asking this in all innocence. I'm intending to build a computer in the next six months. Is it possible to build a Mac, or will I need to buy one pre-built? Also, I need to use a 5-button optic scroll wheel mouse due to some physical limitations. I use the two buttons on the sides to back- and forward- page in Explorer. Is this possible in the Mac OS? And is the right click menu functionality available in OS X? These are a couple of the things that I actually like in the x86 world. And, to be honest, there are things about Explorer I actually like over Netscape. Weird, I know, but go figure. Netscape can run on x86, can Explorer be used on Mac? -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From Noam.Izenberg at jhuapl.edu Sun Feb 8 10:44:36 2004 From: Noam.Izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Izenberg, Noam) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 13:44:36 -0500 Subject: Mac vs PC War--not fighting Message-ID: > I know nothing about this stuff, so I'm just asking this in all > innocence.? I'm intending to build a computer in the next six months. > Is it possible to build a Mac, or will I need to buy one pre-built? I know people fiddle with mac, upgrade processors and such, but 'scratchbuilding' is not a mac thing to the same degree as in the wintel world. > Also, I need to use a 5-button optic scroll wheel mouse due to some > physical limitations.? I use the two buttons on the sides to back- and > forward- page in Explorer.? Is this possible in the Mac OS?? And is > the right click menu functionality available in OS X?? These are a > couple of the things that I actually like in the x86 world. I use a Kensignton 4 button trackball with scrollwheel with no problems on my mac. Right button, middle button, and chording functions are no problem. > And, to be honest, there are things about Explorer I actually like > over Netscape.? Weird, I know, but go figure.? Netscape can run on > x86, can Explorer be used on Mac? On the Mac, Safari blows both IE and Netscape out the door. I personally like Safari on the mac better than other browsers on Windows. That's just info for Lazarus. As for Mac v.s PC - if your happy in one world, you're not likely to move to the other unless you have to. I had to use a PC at work for a few years in the late 90's and was very grateful to get back to mac with the advent of OS X. I'd be happy to tell anyone why I prefer macs over wintel for pretty much any use you could name, offline. For someone who wants to write, blog, surf, and/or do personal accounting, spend the minimal necessary for a stable machine - any platform. You can get sub $800 maybe even sub $600 macs or wintels that have everything you need plus, because everything you need is available on _last_ year's middle of the line computer. Noam From gomi at pollywog.com Sun Feb 8 10:42:35 2004 From: gomi at pollywog.com (Paul Echeverri) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 10:42:35 -0800 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 11:55:46 -0600, Matthew Klahn wrote: > Games are the only place that Macs are really lagging, and that's mostly > because of the economies of scale. Games are not huge money makers > unless you sell many, many copies. Now, most games are moving to > consoles because of the rampant piracy of PC games, and the > commoditization of computer hardware. Strictly as a point of information, piracy for every console bar the GameCube is every bit as widespread as PC game piracy. > I would argue that if I want to play computer games, I'd be much better > served to by a $300 console than a $1000 PC. I would vigorously contest that assertion, but PC v. Console is an entirely different pointless and neverending holy war, and we're over quota as it is. pe From ehahn at isochronism.com Sun Feb 8 10:52:11 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 13:52:11 -0500 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: References: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On 8 Feb 2004, at 1:10 PM, lazarus wrote: > I know nothing about this stuff, so I'm just asking this in all > innocence. I'm intending to build a computer in the next six months. > Is it possible to build a Mac, or will I need to buy one pre-built? If you're buying a PowerMac, you have some configuration options, but for the most part you will not be able to have the exact same degree of flexibility you would have with a PC. > Also, I need to use a 5-button optic scroll wheel mouse due to some > physical limitations. I use the two buttons on the sides to back- and > forward- page in Explorer. Is this possible in the Mac OS? And is > the right click menu functionality available in OS X? These are a > couple of the things that I actually like in the x86 world. Yes you can; Logitech and other companies provide drivers so that their mouses have full functionality. I'm using a 3-button + scrollwheel Logitech mouse right now on my machine, and the buttons and scrollwheel work *without* the customized driver. If I installed that driver, I would have further customization options, but all 3 buttons and the scrollwheel work without them. However, check to see whether the mouse maker's driver supports application-specific customization to be sure. > And, to be honest, there are things about Explorer I actually like > over Netscape. Weird, I know, but go figure. Netscape can run on > x86, can Explorer be used on Mac? Internet Explorer 5.2.2 is installed standard on the Mac; there is also the home-grown Apple browser Safari (based on KDE Konqueror) that is much faster. Of course Mozilla and Netscape are also available. Since this is my first foray into this, I'll add some additional comments. I've used Windows since 95 (including 98SE (shudder), 2k pro, and XP pro), and I've used Macs since 1984. Along the way, I also programmed on various unix boxes, including Sun, SGI, and various DEC machines. When it came time to replace my home computer out of my own pocket about a year ago, I chose Mac. Yes, there are small annoyances, but much less than with any of the other options. For example, I've *never* had to download a driver, for instance (this is with two printers, an external hard drive, external floppy, and two flash card readers). Patching is much less painful, and certainly less frequent. Sleep is much more reliable than suspending a Win2k machine. And I'm at home with the terminal/X11 installation. I can add most of the Linux open source community utilities and applications via fink (from a tty-version of nethack to xemacs). No machine is perfect, and Apple is no exception - sometimes the patches are buggy for a small number of configurations (I've not had a problem yet). As for the interface and user experience of the Mac side, I would recommend the site X vs. XP, which tries to look openly at the different pros and cons of each. www.xvsxp.com ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From dacileva at hotmail.com Sun Feb 8 10:56:44 2004 From: dacileva at hotmail.com (Nik Landauer) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 13:56:44 -0500 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! Message-ID: lazarus wrote: > >I know nothing about this stuff, so I'm just asking this in all >innocence. I'm intending to build a computer in the next six months. >Is it possible to build a Mac, or will I need to buy one pre-built? There are places where you can have one custom-built, or you can go for a desktop and build one. Cost won't, IME, be that different >from buying a pre-built or custom-built machine close to your specs. >Also, I need to use a 5-button optic scroll wheel mouse due to some >physical limitations. I use the two buttons on the sides to back- and >forward- page in Explorer. Is this possible in the Mac OS? Yes, and you're far less likely to have driver issues than on a PC. You could do this in any Mac OS that I know of after 7. >And is the right click menu functionality available in OS X? Yes. Again, this is present in any Mac OS that I know of after 7. The right button is often assigned to Ctrl-click, which does the same thing right-clicking in Windows does. Also, there are freeware and "pintware" extensions that will allow you to expand your right-click menu's capabilities. The most notable is a nice program called "FinderPOP", though I'm not sure Turly ever updated it to OS X. >And, to be honest, there are things about Explorer I actually like >over Netscape. Weird, I know, but go figure. Netscape can run on >x86, can Explorer be used on Mac? Netscape has never been Mac-exclusive. However, neither has ever been PC-exclusive, either, IIRC. Both exist on Mac. Mac also has Mozilla, and the Apple-proprietary browser, which a lot of people who use Macs use and enjoy, Safari. Apart from games, most software has equivalent or better Mac versions or competitors. Example off the top of my head: Most of the PC IRC clients are okay, but all have annoyances. The foremost Mac IRC client, ircle, is *much* better and more capable than all the PC IRC clients put together. One note to whoever called the Mac UI simplistic: I really don't understand what you mean. I used PCs for most of my life, and I use PCs at work, and I've never found anything that I can do on a PC that I can't do on my Mac with OS X. Like with anything, one needs to learn exactly what a Mac is capable of before being qualified to slam or laud it accurately. -- Nik ( Shori / Dacileva ) "You know, once you Feng Shui the organs, it's kind of cozy." - Stewie _________________________________________________________________ Get some great ideas here for your sweetheart on Valentine's Day - and beyond. http://special.msn.com/network/celebrateromance.armx From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Sun Feb 8 11:13:24 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 11:13:24 -0800 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: References: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <1i2d20p2k7k6gc3075mu4ev6lm5d0kp2ma@4ax.com> On Sun, 08 Feb 2004 10:42:35 -0800, you wrote: >On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 11:55:46 -0600, Matthew Klahn wrote: > >> Games are the only place that Macs are really lagging, and that's mostly >> because of the economies of scale. Games are not huge money makers >> unless you sell many, many copies. Now, most games are moving to >> consoles because of the rampant piracy of PC games, and the >> commoditization of computer hardware. > >Strictly as a point of information, piracy for every console bar the >GameCube is every bit as widespread as PC game piracy. > >> I would argue that if I want to play computer games, I'd be much better >> served to by a $300 console than a $1000 PC. > >I would vigorously contest that assertion, but PC v. Console is an >entirely different pointless and neverending holy war, and we're over >quota as it is. > >pe Aw, darn, and I was just girding my loins and all.... -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From matthew at infodancer.org Sun Feb 8 12:10:54 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 14:10:54 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <20040207231312.1141126C5C@boredom.ennui.org> <20040207234031.GB7676@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <20040208201054.GB1318@infodancer.org> On Sun, Feb 08, 2004 at 11:40:32AM -0600, Matthew Klahn wrote: > On Feb 7, 2004, at 17:40 , Matthew Hunter wrote: > >I've been trying to keep my nose out of this, but UNIX can run on > >PCs. A "PC" is a hardware platform, or more accurately, a > >widely-produced, mostly-compatible hardware platform based on the > >x86 architecture and IBM's original thrown-together "personal > >computer". > > Been there, done that. Running Linux was my bread & butter for years, > and in fact, I had to fight to run Linux instead of Win NT 4.0 at a job > where I was doing UNIX programming for a living, go figure. I've > matured to the point where I know all the low-level crap that I want to > about UNIX, and have long passed the point where I care to muck around > with UNIX internals on a weekly basis. I _can_ do that if I want to on > Mac OS X, but I don't _have_ to, which is a major improvement. Running Debian, I don't have to either. I used to run RedHat, back when they were first getting started; it's a management nightmare. Not Debian. > >Don't sneer at PC users; the hardware platform wasn't exactly a > >miracle of original design, but these days it isn't bad at all, > >and the price is hard to beat. There are hardware platforms I > >would want more -- I think the PowerPC processors are better > >designed -- but I'm not willing to pay more in order to be locked > >into the Mac operating system. > > Price is hard to beat, but I use my computer to make money, not to make > the computer work. In fact, I now (because of Linux) HATE mucking > around with endless configuration files to tweak something just so it > will work. One benefit of Mac OS X (and Windows) is that the > environment is rather standard (for Windows, I mean for a given > flavor), so I don't have to recompile a bunch of stuff just so it will > work properly. Installing software via drag & drop is so much nicer > than any mechanism in any Linux distro (RPM, dpkg, tgz) or having "DLL > Hell" and registry problems on Windows. No argument about DLL hell, but I like apt-get a hell of a lot more than drag and drop. One command, and the software is there -- including any dependencies. Debian really does not have management problems. > >Sneer at Microsoft users all you want; they deserve it. > > > >I will also note for the record that I have used Macs, both > >before and after OS X, and don't like using either. Their user > >interface always makes an effort to get in my way. I can see how > >people whose business is not working with computers like them, > >but I can hardly stand to use one for more than a few minutes. > >I feel pretty much the same about windows. > > My buisness is not only working with computers, but also helping other > people work with computers. Of course there are annoyances; you will > find them on any platform. For me, the annoyances in Mac OS X are just > that: annoyances. On Windows they were crippling and on Linux were > merely tedious to the point of disgusting. And, most of the features of > Mac OS X are configurable, since a lot of people like to customize > their machines to the nth degree. You just need to do a little research > on the platform, or buy an O'Reilly book or two (Mac OS X Hacks, for > example, though all of this info is available for free on the web, if > you want to do a little legwork). And don't try to argue that you > wouldn't have to do any research on another UNIX system to do the same > amount of customization: you're right. You'd have to do a lot more > research through much worse documentation and be told "read the source > code" a couple of dozen times if you have any questions. Strangely enough, there's no mainstream problem I've had on Linux where "reading the source code" was the only way to get the answer. And while some problems do require research, that shouldn't surprise anyone -- it is, after all, like any other kind of learning. Like I said in my original post, I could make the effort to learn all about the tricks and customizations of the Mac interface. I might or might not find a way to fix the things that bug me. I don't choose to spend my time doing that, because I already have a system that I know about as close to inside and out as it gets. There's no return potential involved in exploring MacOS; it's just wasted time. Not because it's necessarily bad, but because there's already a better match. In addition, after my experience with the Amiga, I'll be damned if I'll ever use a proprietary operating system again, given the choice. This is a political issue for me as well as a matter of taste. > >Strangely enough, I'm one of those users for whom UNIX > >(specifically, Linux) gets the interface *right*. If someone > >would get their act together and release an open-hardware, > >PowerPC based system optimized for Linux, I'd be there in a > >heartbeat. > > Well, you do have roughly seventy gajillion interfaces to choose from, > so I guess you've got me there. After messing around with the 30th > interface that STILL doesn't work the way you want to, it gets > tiresome... I, myself, progressed this way: WindowMaker -> > Enlightenment -> IceWM -> BlackBox -> WindowMaker -> Sawfish -> Fluxbox > -> WindowMaker; even though WM didn't do everything I wanted, it was > good enough. Anyway, all this to say that while choice is good, if most > of the choices are worse than getting poked in the forehead with a > sharp stick, it's not good anymore. I've tried almost all of those, and settled on sawfish + gnome. Works just fine, looks fairly good. Enlightenment has too much eye candy; IceWM isn't bad but sawfish does everything it does better; blackbox is too minimal; WindowMaker just annoyed me. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 8 15:31:51 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 17:31:51 -0600 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <1i2d20p2k7k6gc3075mu4ev6lm5d0kp2ma@4ax.com> Message-ID: [original email deleted] Is it just me, or is anyone else waiting for a Hitler reference to show up? Aww, crap, there it is... In the same vein, anyone up for a "Sorcery" vs "Witchcraft" flame? How about, "Dragon vs Dzur: Who Would Kick Who's Ass?" Or "Devera vs Mario: Are they the same person? (They're both linked to Aliera, Devera went out East and Mario has an Eastern name, plus I don't remember seeing them both in the same place at the same time...)" Bryan From pulmon at comcast.net Sun Feb 8 15:48:54 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 18:48:54 -0500 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ACF833A-5A91-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> How can Devera be Mario when she is his daughter? After all, Mario and Aliera dallied while Dragaera burned, Aliera went missing, and we all know that the interaction of genetic heritage and reincarnation of the soul is...odd. On Feb 8, 2004, at 6:31 PM, Bryan Newell wrote: > [original email deleted] > > Is it just me, or is anyone else waiting for a Hitler reference to > show up? > Aww, crap, there it is... > > In the same vein, anyone up for a "Sorcery" vs "Witchcraft" flame? > > How about, "Dragon vs Dzur: Who Would Kick Who's Ass?" > > Or "Devera vs Mario: Are they the same person? (They're both linked > to > Aliera, Devera went out East and Mario has an Eastern name, plus I > don't > remember seeing them both in the same place at the same time...)" > > Bryan > > > > > > > > From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 8 16:46:04 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 18:46:04 -0600 Subject: Devera vs Mario In-Reply-To: <5ACF833A-5A91-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: [I fixed the subject line] > How can Devera be Mario when she is his daughter? After all, Mario and > Aliera dallied while Dragaera burned, Aliera went missing, and we all > know that the interaction of genetic heritage and reincarnation of the > soul is...odd. > On Feb 8, 2004, at 6:31 PM, Bryan Newell wrote: > > > Or "Devera vs Mario: Are they the same person? (They're both linked > > to > > Aliera, Devera went out East and Mario has an Eastern name, plus I > > don't > > remember seeing them both in the same place at the same time...)" > > Actually, that was supposed to be funny... I meant for all three reasons to be patently absurd... the 2nd one is retarded, the 3rd one a play on the Vlad/Kiera joke from Orca... Reminds me of an old joke I heard some comedian make. When he was a boy he told the other kids he was going to grow up to be a comedian... they just laughed at him... well, they're not laughing now! From pulmon at comcast.net Sun Feb 8 16:54:23 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 19:54:23 -0500 Subject: Devera vs Mario In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <80436D15-5A9A-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 8, 2004, at 7:46 PM, Bryan Newell wrote: > [I fixed the subject line] > >> How can Devera be Mario when she is his daughter? After all, Mario and >> Aliera dallied while Dragaera burned, Aliera went missing, and we all >> know that the interaction of genetic heritage and reincarnation of the >> soul is...odd. >> On Feb 8, 2004, at 6:31 PM, Bryan Newell wrote: >> >>> Or "Devera vs Mario: Are they the same person? (They're both linked >>> to >>> Aliera, Devera went out East and Mario has an Eastern name, plus I >>> don't >>> remember seeing them both in the same place at the same time...)" >>> > > Actually, that was supposed to be funny... I meant for all three > reasons to > be patently absurd... the 2nd one is retarded, the 3rd one a play on > the > Vlad/Kiera joke from Orca... > > Reminds me of an old joke I heard some comedian make. When he was a > boy he > told the other kids he was going to grow up to be a comedian... they > just > laughed at him... well, they're not laughing now! > > > S'awright, my reply was supposed to be ironically speculative (or speculatively ironic). As to your third reason, that was a play on Clark Kent! From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 8 17:32:03 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 19:32:03 -0600 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not Message-ID: So, I've recently been trying to create a map of Dragaera using references >from the novels (Paarfi, especially, likes to describe the geography of specific scenes)... Has anyone else tried this with any luck? I admit to being stumped for the most part... there just doesn't appear to be enough information to figure out where places relate to one another... However, I have made some progress. If I accept the following as my postulates: 1. Mr. Brust hasn't made any mistakes in geography (ie, this isn't a Crack) 2. Neither Vlad or Paarfi is lying or _completely_ wrong (I'm betting Dragaerans (or at least Vlad) don't know geometry very well, see below). Then I can "work out" a map of at least the relationship between Adrilankha, Castle Black and Dzur Mountain, which I think is a good starting point. 1. Book of Jhereg, pg 56 - "By then I'd be at Castle Black, some two hundred miles to the Northeast [from Adrilankha]" 2. Book of Taltos, pg 3 - "Some two hundred miles to the north and east of Adrilankha there lies a mountain, shaped as if by the hand of a megalomaniacal sculptor into the form of a crouching grey dzur [Dzur Mountain]" 3. Book of Taltos, pg 8 - "[Morrolan] Lives about a hundred and fity miles inland, in a floating castle [Castle Black]" 4. Book of Taltos, pg 8 - "...Dzur Mountain is part of his fief. It's about fifty miles from where his castle usually is." Ignore #3 for a moment. Let's first try accepting #1, #2, and #4 at face value. We can then make a triangle, with Adrilankha at one point, Castle Black at the 2nd, and Dzur Mountain at the 3rd. I'll refer to these points from now on as A, B, and D, respectively. A to B = "some two hundred miles" per #1 A to D = "some two hundred miles" per #2 B to D = "about fifty miles" from #4 Figure 1 - literal triangle D | \ / \ | B / / | / / / | / / / | / // A (pardon my ASCII graphics here) The first thing you'll note is that if you draw it such that B is northeast of A (again, from #1), D is West of B.... No matter where you put it, so long as you keep B even 1 mile North and East of A, D is always West of B: Which is wrong, I think, since in LOCB, Kana sends two armies, one approaches from the north, the other from the west, and the one from the west gets to B (or rather, it's future home) _on the way to_ D... Unless they went around to the South, and overshot, which isn't supported by Paarfi. Then again, Piro and friends are returning from the NE, and veer around the northern Kana army, and end up running into Morrolan, and that makes a little more sense if Morrolan was east of Castle Black, but I don't know, Figure 1 just doesn't quite feel right. Maybe #2 means "go 200 miles to the north, then 200 miles to the east" and you're at D. Note that he says "north and east" and not "northeast". So, if you make a 200 x 200 mile box, and put A in the SW corner, and D in the NE corner, maybe we can find a spot for B such that it is 200 miles from A and 50 miles from D. You can't... The shortest path from A to D is ~284 miles, along the 45 degree diagonal... There's absolutely no place you can put B where it is 200 miles from A and 50 miles from D. And besides, that would mean B is WEST of D, and then we have Piro's band to consider. Why would they veer east around D, go south, then go back west of D on their way around Kana's northern army? Once again, trying not to give up and declare this a Crack, if #2 means "200 north, THEN 200 east", and Dragaeran's haven't learned Geometry very well (remember, in the Paarfi novels knowing your Arithmetic is pretty rare and amazing), maybe #1 is Vlad's best stab at "200 miles to the east [and then go north an unspecified distance that puts you northeast of Adrilankha]". If you place B 200 miles East of A and 50 miles south of D (and thus 150 miles north of A) the actual distance between A and B becomes sqrt(200*200+150*150) = 250 miles. So Vlad uses the shorthand that Castle Black is "200 miles" to the east and "150 miles" to the north (the two right-angle legs of the triangle), and so he uses the bigger number, 200 miles, then indicates its true direction, northeast. Any Cartographers or Historians out there? I wonder if any recorded ancient geography descriptions used this type of logic before Pythagoras. I don't know, maybe that's stretching it a bit, but it does very neatly have #3 on its side: If the Coast runs DUE EAST of Adrilankha (ie, it doesn't curve north or south, and nothing indicates it does), and B is 150 miles north of the Coast (which I'll call C), that matches up with the above exactly: Figure 2 - the + and letters represent 50 mile markers +----+----+----+----D | | + B | | + + | | + + | | A----+----+----+----C So #3 seems to support Figure 2. Of course, #3 can also apply to Figure 1, but forces D to be closer to North of A than Northeast... or else the coast DOES curve to the south the further east you get of Adrilankha, which, again, is not supported in the text. This also makes a little more sense for Kana's army, but still doesn't feel quite right. If they were headed for D from the west, why go through B on the way? Maybe it was to attack D from the north and SOUTH, and not the north and WEST. Another alternative is that they veered more out of their way than Paarfi seems to indicate when Kana's scouts reported a sighting of Morrolan's army. Same thing with Piro's returning band. Having B due south of D makes more sense than having B west of D... Piro's band going around to the east could meet up with Kana's western army "due south" of D. So I'm leaning towards Figure 2. Anyone else have any explanations or ideas that don't violate my postulates above? While I haven't quoted them, there are more references (mostly from Paarfi) that agree with Vlad's figures; I can provide them if anyone wants to see them... Bryan From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sun Feb 8 17:52:55 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 17:52:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: > If I accept the following as my postulates: > > 1. Mr. Brust hasn't made any mistakes in geography (ie, this isn't a Crack) > > 2. Neither Vlad or Paarfi is lying or _completely_ wrong (I'm betting > Dragaerans (or at least Vlad) don't know geometry very well, see below). [lots of nice work snipped] > Anyone else have any explanations or ideas that don't violate my postulates > above? While I haven't quoted them, there are more references (mostly from > Paarfi) that agree with Vlad's figures; I can provide them if anyone wants > to see them... re 2), you neglect slips of tongue and dyscartia, if that's a word. In plenty of European languages "west" and "east" are sadly similar, and otherwise sensible people (e.g. me) get mixed up ("so we drive up to Bush and take a right and then since they said it would be on the right past Laguna driving west from downtown we'll have to curl around" said my gf the other day, which was completely confusing to me since I blanked on what "west from downtown" meant at that point). Anyway, sounds like you should dub yourself official cartographer (if the position's available) and post the rest of your evidence from Paarfi. You can remind me where the Greater Sea and the actual sea are, for instance, and how one gets to the latter from the east... From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 8 17:52:20 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 19:52:20 -0600 Subject: Devera vs Mario In-Reply-To: <80436D15-5A9A-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: Touche. :) > -----Original Message----- > From: Kenneth Gorelick [mailto:pulmon at comcast.net] > Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 6:54 PM > To: bryann at bryann.net > Cc: SKZB List > Subject: Re: Devera vs Mario > > > > On Feb 8, 2004, at 7:46 PM, Bryan Newell wrote: > > > [I fixed the subject line] > > > >> How can Devera be Mario when she is his daughter? After all, Mario and > >> Aliera dallied while Dragaera burned, Aliera went missing, and we all > >> know that the interaction of genetic heritage and reincarnation of the > >> soul is...odd. > >> On Feb 8, 2004, at 6:31 PM, Bryan Newell wrote: > >> > >>> Or "Devera vs Mario: Are they the same person? (They're both linked > >>> to > >>> Aliera, Devera went out East and Mario has an Eastern name, plus I > >>> don't > >>> remember seeing them both in the same place at the same time...)" > >>> > > > > Actually, that was supposed to be funny... I meant for all three > > reasons to > > be patently absurd... the 2nd one is retarded, the 3rd one a play on > > the > > Vlad/Kiera joke from Orca... > > > > Reminds me of an old joke I heard some comedian make. When he was a > > boy he > > told the other kids he was going to grow up to be a comedian... they > > just > > laughed at him... well, they're not laughing now! > > > > > > > S'awright, my reply was supposed to be ironically speculative (or > speculatively ironic). As to your third reason, that was a play on > Clark Kent! > From dusty at sayersnet.com Sun Feb 8 19:29:02 2004 From: dusty at sayersnet.com (J A 'Dusty' Sayers) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 22:29:02 -0500 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4026FE7E.1050907@sayersnet.com> Bryan Newell wrote: >So, I've recently been trying to create a map of Dragaera using references >from the novels (Paarfi, especially, likes to describe the geography of >specific scenes)... > >Has anyone else tried this with any luck? I admit to being stumped for the >most part... there just doesn't appear to be enough information to figure >out where places relate to one another... > Although it may not help much the introduction to _Dzurlord_ (which may or may not be trustworthy) says, 'The continent on which the Empire rests is roughly the shape of Europe, but twice the size, and the Empire encompasses (at the moment) more than half of it. Easterners (read: human beings) make up the rest.' The full text of the introduction can be found at http://www.mojoworld.net/sil/treats/dzurlordintro.html and probably elsewhere. I think I even read once, somewhere, that a map had once been made, but has been lost, but I could easily be mis-remembering. In any event, I wish you the best of luck and look forward to seeing what you come up with. I happen to love maps, although I understand how an author might be happier not having one--it doesn't tie him down to so much that way, and leaves him more free to tell you something cool. -- J A Dusty Sayers Home Page http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/ Rescue the Princess http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/rescue/ 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.' --John Donne From dd-b at dd-b.net Sun Feb 8 20:24:15 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 22:24:15 -0600 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> (Matthew Klahn's message of "Sun, 8 Feb 2004 11:55:46 -0600") References: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: Matthew Klahn writes: > [Warning: top-posting only to remain consistent!] > > To back up the disagreement: You can replace most hardware in a Mac > desktop that you'd care to replace. I think the only major part > you'd have a hard time replacing is the processor (which IS still > possible on the desktop side, though much more expensive than x86 > processors, to be sure). Macs use IDE harddrives, standard RAM DIMMs > and PCI or PCI-X cards in PowerMacs. Most Macs are really meant to > use FireWire or USB (1 or 2, depending on how new your Mac is) for > expansion so you don't HAVE to replace internal components. Mac > laptops have PCMCIA, USB (1 or 2) and FireWire (400 or 800) for > expansion. The single piece of hardware I've replaced most, over the years, is the *power supply*. I've added SCSI, IDE, multi-serial, and firewire cards to PCs. Yes, I've added IDE cards to PCs with two IDE channels on the motherboard already. And of course video cards. I've replaced a lot of those (not because they broke). Your list of what you might want to replace or change seems very limiting to me. (And I hardly ever even play computer games. *Never* play fancy modern ones.) -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 8 20:26:48 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 22:26:48 -0600 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: > > > If I accept the following as my postulates: > > > > 1. Mr. Brust hasn't made any mistakes in geography (i.e., this > isn't a Crack) > > > > 2. Neither Vlad or Paarfi is lying or _completely_ wrong (I'm betting > > Dragaerans (or at least Vlad) don't know geometry very well, see below). > > [lots of nice work snipped] Thanks. This one is even longer; while looking up a page number, I found a line I had previously missed in Lord of Castle Black (LOCB) that, I think, proves that Figure 1 from my previous email is correct, and NOT Figure 2. Read on. > > Anyone else have any explanations or ideas that don't violate > my postulates > > above? While I haven't quoted them, there are more references > (mostly from > > Paarfi) that agree with Vlad's figures; I can provide them if > anyone wants > > to see them... > > re 2), you neglect slips of tongue and dyscartia, if that's a word. > In plenty of European languages "west" and "east" are sadly similar, > and otherwise sensible people (e.g. me) get mixed up ("so we drive up to > Bush and take a right and then since they said it would be on the right > past Laguna driving west from downtown we'll have to curl around" said > my gf the other day, which was completely confusing to me since I blanked > on what "west from downtown" meant at that point). I lumped that in with Postulate #2. I'm being a bit of a pragmatist here: I'm assuming that there IS an actual geography, and that it is knowable from the books. Without that, this is a pointless exercise, and I hope it isn't. I would really like to see/make a map of Dragaera. Tolkein's map of Middle Earth had an immense impact on me when I was young, and I consider it as much a part of the Lord of the Rings as the books themselves. Every time I see the map, I remember all the events that happened at each place. It's a very warm and fuzzy feeling; the map is sort of a shorthand for the books themselves. > Anyway, sounds like you should dub yourself official cartographer (if the > position's available) and post the rest of your evidence from Paarfi. > You can remind me where the Greater Sea and the actual sea are, for > instance, and how one gets to the latter from the east... The only book I haven't been able to read or find is "Brokedown Palace". Per Barnes & Noble, it's out of print, and I haven't been able to locate a copy at any of the local book stores here. I understand it has a map of the East in it. I would _love_ to see that map, because maybe it has features along the Eastern Mountains (Faerie Mountains, for Easternerss) that would allow me to place Mount Bli'aard, Mount Drift, South Mountain, Mount Klassor, etc, etc. Anyway, back to this specific example (the Adrilankha, Castle Black, Dzur Mountain Triangle): First of all, for the Paarfi books, I use the term "Castle Black" instead of "Morrolan's encampment" in a few places, because Castle Black is later raised over Morrolan's encampment, and hasn't moved since then. This will be backed up by the text below: 1. General Directions POD (sorry, no page number) - "[from Dzur Mountain] travel ... southwest to Adrilankha, or west to Adron's Disaster, or south to the Coast." LOCB, pg 44 - "[From Nacine, near the future home of Castle Black] the coast to the south, the Shallow Sea to the east, the Adrilankha River to the west, and Dzur Mountain to the north." These two just establish the rough direction. Dzur Mountain is northeast of Adrilankha, and north of Nacine/Castle Black. 2. Kana's armies and Piro's band in relation to Castle Black LOCB, pg 168-169 - "So, there are armies marching. More than one? / Two. One from the west, the other from the north." LOCB, pg 244 - [Piro's band] "As [Kana's army] are approaching from the northeast, let us move southeast, in the hopes of finding their flanks, and skirting it." LOCB, pg 249 - "By the time Morrolan was ready to move forward again, Zerika had entered Nacine" This establishes my assertion that Kana's two armies were indeed coming from the north and west, and that Piro's band ran into Kana's army on their way to Dzur Mountain, then went southEAST to get around them and eventually reached Nacine. 3. Nacine, Castle Black, and Dzur Mountain relationship LOCB, pg 44 - "[From Nacine] The Vallista, however, had barely begun their work when Dzur Mountain, some seventy or eighty miles north, had unexpectedly erupted." LOCB, pg 46-47 - "Sir Fineol pretends that he knows where, not fifteen miles >from [Nacine], are the ruins of a castle that once floated above this district ... Once past the west gate continue for three or four leagues [9 or 12 miles, assuming a rough correlation between Dragaeran miles/leagues and our own] until the road curves left to avoid a pond. After following it to the left, you will almost at once see a smaller trail also going to the left. Take this trail up into the hills, and, from the top of the hills, you will see the ruins of the castle spreading out before you." LOCB, pg 69 - "By this time, what could almost be considered a small village had grown up around the site of the ruined castle ... [Morrolan] announced one day that the blocks of stone were to be put to use in the building of a temple to his patron Goddess." LOCB, pg 182 - "The distance from Morrolan's encampment to Dzur Mountain was not long--only some forty or forty-five miles" LOCB, pg 197 - "The Ninth Battle of Dzur Mountain (or the Tenth, if the reader prefers) was not fought in the immediate environs of Dzur Mountain--on the contrary, the battlefield was some forty or forty-five miles south of it" LOCB, pg 258-259 - "[From Nacine, Piro's band] had gone some distance along what seemed to be a crude road, or perhaps a new but well-trod path, running west from Nacine ... Very soon, they were traveling once more, Khaavren setting out in a northwesterly direction, hoping to stay parallel with the road." [this is the line I missed that seems to prove Figure 1 is right, and not Figure 2, because Nacine is southeast of Castle Black, which has to be southeast of Dzur Mountain as well (see below)] LOCB, pg 283 - "How much area can you lift? ... To begin, you have said you could lift the temple." The above establishes that Castle Black was raised from Morrolan's Encampment, the Temple specifically, and that the distance from Castle Black to Dzur Mountain is "40 to 45 miles", and Vlad says "some 50 miles", so I figure that sounds about right. It also appears to indicate Castle Black has not moved much since it was first raised. My first bit of extrapolation is that Castle Black is on a straight line between Nacine and Dzur Mountain, and that line runs southeast from Dzur Mountain, which puts Castle Black south and east of Dzur Mountain [so it would seem Figure 1 from my previous email is more correct... I missed the line on pg 258-259, I only saw it while flipping back through LOCB looking for a missing page number for the quote on 283]. My reason for the "straight line" hypothesis is that we have three triangulated distances again, so we can attempt to make a triangle, only it won't work. The best we can do is a straight line: Nacine (N) to D = 70 or 80 miles B to N = 15 miles B to D = 50 miles No side of a triangle can be longer than the other two combined, and if one side is exactly equal to the sum of the other two, you have a line, not a triangle (i.e., two angles are 0, the third 180). So combining the two shorter legs, 50 + 15, gives us 65 miles... which is the straight line figure, and is the closest we can get to 70 miles (the low end of Paarfi's figure). Book of Athyra, pg 286 - "Just a little ways to the east [of Northport] you have these prairies that look like the area around Castle Black and west of Dzur Mountain." The Orca quote above indicates there is similar terrain "around Castle Black" and "west of Dzur Mountain". Now of course, maybe he's talking about two different sets of prairies, but I'm betting there is one prairie that is "around Castle Black and west of Dzur Mountain". Since it appears Castle Black is southeast of Dzur Mountain, the prairie appears to curve around Dzur Mountain (which is, after all, a mountain), leading to Figure 3: Figure 3 Nacine, Castle Black, and Dzur Mountain ____ \ D \ \ \ \ \____\______ \ \ \ \ Prairie B \ \ \ N \ So, I'm glad you asked for the Paarfi quotes, because I found one I was missing that a) removes the "no geometry" clause in my previous email, and b) means we can probably take Vlad's word at face value, which means Figure 1 is the correct relationship between these three major settings. Bryan From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sun Feb 8 20:45:25 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 20:45:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: > I lumped that in with Postulate #2. I'm being a bit of a pragmatist here: > I'm assuming that there IS an actual geography, and that it is knowable from > the books. Without that, this is a pointless exercise, and I hope it isn't. I'm just saying you should consider the occasional north/south or east/west or whatever switch. So if Adrilankha's central (which is what I thought) and Dzur Mountain is southeastern then maybe you need to move the former up... > The only book I haven't been able to read or find is "Brokedown Palace". > Per Barnes & Noble, it's out of print, and I haven't been able to locate a > copy at any of the local book stores here. I understand it has a map of the > East in it. I would _love_ to see that map, because maybe it has features > along the Eastern Mountains (Faerie Mountains, for Easternerss) that would > allow me to place Mount Bli'aard, Mount Drift, South Mountain, Mount > Klassor, etc, etc. You can get it for a few to a handful of bucks at half.com... There is a map, but I doubt it's helpful to you. Off-hand I don't think it's consistent with my vague notion of the northern end of the Eastern Mountains. If you make a web page with a map, it would be cool if you could use something like dia to make the relations between the locations into links to the texts you use... I'm thinking something like this http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~philiph/rqm/rqm_dia.png but with links and distances. From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 8 20:54:56 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 22:54:56 -0600 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > The only book I haven't been able to read or find is "Brokedown Palace". > > Per Barnes & Noble, it's out of print, and I haven't been able > to locate a > > copy at any of the local book stores here. I understand it has > a map of the > > East in it. I would _love_ to see that map, because maybe it > has features > > along the Eastern Mountains (Faerie Mountains, for Easternerss) > that would > > allow me to place Mount Bli'aard, Mount Drift, South Mountain, Mount > > Klassor, etc, etc. > > You can get it for a few to a handful of bucks at half.com... > There is a map, but I doubt it's helpful to you. Off-hand I don't think > it's consistent with my vague notion of the northern end of the Eastern > Mountains. I haven't held out a great hope it would be that helpful, but do I have a small[er :)] hope. > If you make a web page with a map, it would be cool if you could use > something like dia to make the relations between the locations into links > to the texts you use... > I'm thinking something like this > http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~philiph/rqm/rqm_dia.png > but with links and distances. The distances are either vague or in units that are not necessarily reliable, so mostly I've been trying to determine what is north of what, what is west of what, etc, etc. Right now it's all in a spreadsheet; I don't have enough info to really create a "point and lines" map yet. I realize the ascii art I'm using is weak at best; I'll try putting up a few graphical representations on my website, since you're interested. I'll let you know when I get them on there. Bryan From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sun Feb 8 21:08:13 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 21:08:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > The distances are either vague or in units that are not necessarily > reliable, so mostly I've been trying to determine what is north of what, > what is west of what, etc, etc. > > Right now it's all in a spreadsheet; I don't have enough info to really > create a "point and lines" map yet. > > I realize the ascii art I'm using is weak at best; I'll try putting up a few > graphical representations on my website, since you're interested. Ok, what you should really do is make a java or whatever app that allows the user to adjust the positions of the various locations relative to each other subject to constraints that can be clicked off; the app should then calculate the chi-squared probability for the chosen arrangement. The probability that Vlad sneezed when he said south-west or whatever should be user-settable, too. But a collection of geographical data and tentative conclusions is already a good start. Note that last spring or so this list discussed rates of travel on horseback and SKZB posted a range. From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Mon Feb 9 06:56:57 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 06:56:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040209145657.67620.qmail@web21404.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Newell wrote: > > > 2. Neither Vlad or Paarfi is lying or > _completely_ wrong (I'm betting > > > Dragaerans (or at least Vlad) don't know > geometry very well, see below). Here is an interesting quote: --- The Book of Taltos, Taltos, p. 12 (Vlad to Kragar) "Yeah. Can he handle the coordinates?" (Krager to Vlad) "Morrolan said one of his people would put them straight into the mind of whoever we want to do the spell." --- But it could be a translation issue, as discussed before. We know that teleportation is sometimes done by visualizing the place (See Vlad's detailed teleport in Teckla, Chapter 16 based on book search). But perhaps there are different ways to fix on a location depending on the skill of the sorcerer? For example when tracing a teleport? Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Mon Feb 9 07:39:04 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 07:39:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: I taunt you a second time. Message-ID: <20040209153904.97568.qmail@web21405.mail.yahoo.com> I need some help with something that's been bothering me. Okay, it seems to me that Zerika went back to the paths of the dead a second time. See quotes first: --- The Book of Taltos, Taltos p. 96 (Morrolan to Vlad near Deathgate Falls) "As you approach Greymist Valley, sorcery becomes more difficult. From the time you reach Deathgate, it is impossible." I said, "Why is that?" "I don't know." "Are you certain it's true, or is it just rumor?" "I'm certain. I was at the top of the falls with Zerika, holding off some local brigands while she made her descent. If I could have used sorcery, I would have." (They talk about brigands:) (Vlad) "Great. Well, if they return, they may recognize you and leave us alone." "None of those will return." "I see." --- So, first we have Morrolan knowing sorcery at the time of the decent. Second, the statements "None of those will return/I see" Suggests Blackwand. Neither of those were present during the first decent. Furthermore, Paarfi does not mention Morrolan beeing there the first time: --- The Paths of the Dead Hardback, p. 327-336 Piro, Lar, Kytraan, Tazendra, Mica, and Zerika were at the top of the falls at the moment of decent. p. 305 Morrolan is far to the south at the time. --- Since Zerika is alive and is the Empress in Phoenix (and Morrolan is speaking of the past in a book that takes place before Phoenix) the second decent is not related to her death. Perhaps all is revealed in _Sethra Lavode_!!!!! (I am guessing she forgot something in her saddle-bag. Toothbrush? Maybe she wants to give her horse a proper burial :-) Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From mklahn at mac.com Mon Feb 9 09:37:28 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 11:37:28 -0600 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: References: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On Feb 8, 2004, at 22:24 , David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > The single piece of hardware I've replaced most, over the years, is > the *power supply*. > > I've added SCSI, IDE, multi-serial, and firewire cards to PCs. Yes, > I've added IDE cards to PCs with two IDE channels on the motherboard > already. > > And of course video cards. I've replaced a lot of those (not because > they broke). > > Your list of what you might want to replace or change seems very > limiting to me. > > (And I hardly ever even play computer games. *Never* play fancy > modern ones.) Ok, so just to let you know then, in Power Macs (the desktop tower machines), really almost everything is replaceable by a knowledgeable PC builder, if you don't mind eating the cost: - motherboard - power supply - AGP video cards (ATI & nVidia right now) - PCI extension cards (modem, FireWire, USB2, add'l video cards, specialized DSPs, etc.) - memory - processor(s) (probably the single most expensive thing) - hard drives - optical drives - zip/tape drives Hell, I can't think of anything that is in a PC that you can't put into a Mac, except specialized hardware that has only Windows support. However, please remember that Macs are very heavily used in the video and digital art/publishing markets. Almost every part of a Mac is standardized to PC hardware because they are trying to get their costs down and make it easy for companies that have lots of Macs to repair them in-house. Now, granted, in a G4 iMac (the new, flat-panel ones), you don't have PCI expansion, and no room in the case to do anything with expansion. Of course, the parts are replaceable, but not from off-the-shelf components, because the case of the machine is so specialized. All normal parts (HD, optical drive, memory) are replaceable/addible by the owner, if you're brave. Sorry I didn't put in a complete list before; I completely forgot AGP video cards... -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From zarkon at illrepute.org Mon Feb 9 09:35:41 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 12:35:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Slashdot sighting.... In-Reply-To: <20040207224528.GA23338@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <20040206220349.GA28663@bofh.com> <20040207224528.GA23338@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Sat, 7 Feb 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: @> On Fri, Feb 06, 2004 at 03:03:49PM -0700, Jot Powers wrote: @> > The current slashdot poll: @> . . . @> > o Mica's barstool <----- @> @> Yeah, and only 1% are voting for it. Oh, the shame. With geeks, it's hard to beat lightsabers. (Not going for the obvious joke...) From jtrager at keyway.net Mon Feb 9 10:00:00 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (John Trager) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 10:00:00 -0800 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> In our defense... Some of us top-post because we're stuck using suboptimal email clients. (Versamail 2.5 for the Palm in my case) Correct email editing takes bloody forever on this thing. rone at ennui.org (rone) wrote: __________ >Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod writes: > Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails > automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was using Usenet > or NNTP serives. > >Another warning to newbies: Please don't top-post. It's like writing >an answer before a question. > >rone >-- >Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy >conservation, but that's stupidity for you. > - Rich Holmes From Randi128 at aol.com Mon Feb 9 10:00:13 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 13:00:13 -0500 Subject: Brust weblog entry Message-ID: <0D200E42.218B3B3B.007F4CFD@aol.com> 5:30 AM? Way too early for my blood. Steve, do you ever sleep? John Barbato, OD From bryann at bryann.net Mon Feb 9 10:14:08 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 12:14:08 -0600 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: <20040209145657.67620.qmail@web21404.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Actually, I did a quick turnaround in my 2nd email, as I missed a quote from Paarfi in Lord of Castle Black that makes it seem that the issue of "do the Dragaerans know geometry" moot. But that is an interesting line there. I would think if you're familiar with coordinates, you're familiar with at least some form of geometry. Of course, you could be right, maybe it's just a translation issue. > -----Original Message----- > From: Kenneth Stone [mailto:knots4kcs at yahoo.com] > Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 8:57 AM > To: dragaera > Cc: bryann at bryann.net > Subject: RE: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not > > > > --- Bryan Newell wrote: > > > > > 2. Neither Vlad or Paarfi is lying or > > _completely_ wrong (I'm betting > > > > Dragaerans (or at least Vlad) don't know > > geometry very well, see below). > > Here is an interesting quote: > > --- > The Book of Taltos, Taltos, p. 12 > > (Vlad to Kragar) > "Yeah. Can he handle the coordinates?" > (Krager to Vlad) > "Morrolan said one of his people would put > them straight into the mind of whoever we > want to do the spell." > --- > > But it could be a translation issue, as > discussed before. We know that teleportation > is sometimes done by visualizing the place > (See Vlad's detailed teleport in Teckla, > Chapter 16 based on book search). > But perhaps there are different ways to > fix on a location depending on the skill > of the sorcerer? For example when tracing > a teleport? > > Ken > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. > http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html > From bryann at bryann.net Mon Feb 9 10:12:08 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 12:12:08 -0600 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: <4026FE7E.1050907@sayersnet.com> Message-ID: Actually, I've seen that webpage before. I haven't read the actual Dzurlord book, but to my knowledge, that introduction is the only reference to the location of the Great Sea in any of the novels. Bryan > -----Original Message----- > From: J A 'Dusty' Sayers [mailto:dusty at sayersnet.com] > Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 9:29 PM > To: Dragaera Mailing List > Subject: Re: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not > > > Bryan Newell wrote: > > >So, I've recently been trying to create a map of Dragaera using > references > >from the novels (Paarfi, especially, likes to describe the geography of > >specific scenes)... > > > >Has anyone else tried this with any luck? I admit to being > stumped for the > >most part... there just doesn't appear to be enough information to figure > >out where places relate to one another... > > > > Although it may not help much the introduction to _Dzurlord_ (which may > or may not be trustworthy) says, 'The continent on which the Empire > rests is roughly the shape of Europe, but twice the size, and the Empire > encompasses (at the moment) more than half of it. Easterners (read: > human beings) make up the rest.' The full text of the introduction can > be found at http://www.mojoworld.net/sil/treats/dzurlordintro.html and > probably elsewhere. I think I even read once, somewhere, that a map had > once been made, but has been lost, but I could easily be > mis-remembering. In any event, I wish you the best of luck and look > forward to seeing what you come up with. I happen to love maps, > although I understand how an author might be happier not having one--it > doesn't tie him down to so much that way, and leaves him more free to > tell you something cool. > > -- > J A Dusty Sayers > > Home Page http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/ > Rescue the Princess http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/rescue/ > > 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of > the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by > the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as > well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's > death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and > therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.' > --John Donne > > > From mam at theworld.com Mon Feb 9 11:05:40 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 14:05:40 -0500 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm watching this thread without taking part, because of time pressure; but I look forward to seeing what you come up with. #I would really like to see/make a map of Dragaera. Tolkein's map of Middle Tolkn, that is; and it rhymes with "scene", not "sign". #My reason for the "straight line" hypothesis is that we have three #triangulated distances again, so we can attempt to make a triangle, only it #won't work. The best we can do is a straight line: # #Nacine (N) to D = 70 or 80 miles # #B to N = 15 miles # #B to D = 50 miles # #No side of a triangle can be longer than the other two combined, True on a plane, and true for these travel distances. For distances on a sphere where the curvature of the surface becomes significant, not so; so be careful if you start calculating the size of the continent. Let's have some fun. F'rex, let N = the North Pole of Earth, A = the intersection of the Equator and the Greenwich Meridian (0 deg N, 0 deg W), and B = 0 deg N, 90 deg W. This is an equilateral triangle (AN=AB=BN) with all right angles. Now move B westward 90 degrees to B' at the Equator and the International Date Line (0 N, 180 W [=180 E]). AB' = 2AN = 2B'N. Now move B another 90 degrees west, to B'' at 0 N, 90 E. AB'' = 3AN = 3B''N. Heh! ("Get back to work, boss!" "Shut.... uh, thanks, Loiosh. Right you are." "I'm always right.") -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mia_mcdavid at comcast.net Mon Feb 9 16:30:24 2004 From: mia_mcdavid at comcast.net (Mia McDavid) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 18:30:24 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> References: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> Message-ID: <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> And *some* of us top post because we don't like wading through a discussion we remember perfectly well to get to the tiny new comment at the bottom . . . John Trager wrote: >In our defense... Some of us top-post because we're stuck using suboptimal email clients. (Versamail 2.5 for the Palm in my case) > >Correct email editing takes bloody forever on this thing. > >rone at ennui.org (rone) wrote: >__________ > > >>Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod writes: >> Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails >> automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was using Usenet >> or NNTP serives. >> >>Another warning to newbies: Please don't top-post. It's like writing >>an answer before a question. >> >>rone >>-- >>Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy >>conservation, but that's stupidity for you. >> - Rich Holmes >> >> > > > > > From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 9 17:49:55 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 17:49:55 -0800 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <762CFB68-5B24-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <002401c3ee41$f0ac8970$7a02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> <9FD69D94-5A53-11D8-A7D9-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <0580D1AA-5A60-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> <762CFB68-5B24-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <6D3EE622-5B6B-11D8-99FA-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> *chuckles* The faithful live ever on. We are like a cult, lol. -Jeff > Wow, I didn't know that it was so long ago! Thanks for the info. And, > I also would consider it as theft from the Mac gaming community, which > can hardly afford to be stolen from! Glad to hear that there are at > least a few Mac-heads on Steven's list... > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > From xmasberry at mail.com Mon Feb 9 19:19:56 2004 From: xmasberry at mail.com (h christmas) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 20:19:56 -0700 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 9.2.04 10:37, "Matthew Klahn" wrote: > On Feb 8, 2004, at 22:24 , David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >> The single piece of hardware I've replaced most, over the years, is >> the *power supply*. >> >> I've added SCSI, IDE, multi-serial, and firewire cards to PCs. Yes, >> I've added IDE cards to PCs with two IDE channels on the motherboard >> already. >> >> And of course video cards. I've replaced a lot of those (not because >> they broke). >> >> Your list of what you might want to replace or change seems very >> limiting to me. >> >> (And I hardly ever even play computer games. *Never* play fancy >> modern ones.) > > Ok, so just to let you know then, in Power Macs (the desktop tower > machines), really almost everything is replaceable by a knowledgeable > PC builder, if you don't mind eating the cost: > > - motherboard yes, but you do not have the options that you have with an x86 based machine. but then, you also don't have to do any research. Apple will tell you what you can use. > - power supply > - AGP video cards (ATI & nVidia right now) > - PCI extension cards (modem, FireWire, USB2, add'l video cards, > specialized DSPs, etc.) > - memory > - processor(s) (probably the single most expensive thing) Again, limited options... > - hard drives > - optical drives Hopefully Apple will stop their crippling DVD drives and allow their DVD+R capable drives to actually write that way soon instead of just DVD-R. > - zip/tape drives you do have to note, however, that Apple has built many of their cases to limit the number of optical drives you can add. If, for some reason, you wanted a ZIP drive and two optical drives in the Quicksilver line, you were out of luck. The new G5s also have an insane limit of two internal hard drives, I believe, which makes it impossible if you want to have a raid and a separate boot drive. Bad decision on Apple's part I would say. But then they want you to buy the Xserve if you want to raid. Much of your expansion, should you want to expand either with optical or hard drives, must be done with external drives which are more expensive and take up more space. > > Hell, I can't think of anything that is in a PC that you can't put into > a Mac, except specialized hardware that has only Windows support. > However, please remember that Macs are very heavily used in the video > and digital art/publishing markets. This is actually surprising and not all that true for the film industry where some houses have moved from Sun to Linux lately. I work with a film major who would not consider doing his editing on compositing on a mac as there are better software packages (for less money) for his PC. > Almost every part of a Mac is > standardized to PC hardware because they are trying to get their costs > down and make it easy for companies that have lots of Macs to repair > them in-house. > > Now, granted, in a G4 iMac (the new, flat-panel ones), you don't have > PCI expansion, and no room in the case to do anything with expansion. > Of course, the parts are replaceable, but not from off-the-shelf > components, because the case of the machine is so specialized. All > normal parts (HD, optical drive, memory) are replaceable/addible by the > owner, if you're brave. Most modifications to the iMac, except for the easily accessible one stick of RAM will, however, void your warranty. But the iMac is great for someone who primarily wants to save space, surf, email and do word processing, which is much of the population. I have a PC at home and a mac at work doing web and database design as well as photo editing on both machines. The only things I miss on my PC are BBEdit and apple + q to quit an application. I use crazy browser at home and was excited when Safari had many of the same features. I do think Safari is a wonderful browser, however. My next work station will be a PC because I don't mind doing the research to put together a decent system and can build and support it myself. If I were to get a laptop, however, I would definitely get an Apple as you cannot get the same features (configuration, weight, battery life) at an even comparable price in an x86-based laptop. Plus, I do enjoy OS X, especially now that it is using the video card so that it is not so sluggish. All in all I think both platforms have their uses and like them both for different reasons. The thing that bothers me most about both platforms are the zealots, but that bothers me about anything. > > Sorry I didn't put in a complete list before; I completely forgot AGP > video cards... > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > From david at crlf.net Mon Feb 9 20:01:16 2004 From: david at crlf.net (David Maxwell) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 23:01:16 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> References: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040210040116.GH11940@mail> On Mon, Feb 09, 2004 at 06:30:24PM -0600, Mia McDavid wrote: > > And *some* of us top post because we don't like wading through a > discussion we remember perfectly well to get to the tiny new comment at > the bottom . . . Responding to bad behaviour with bad behaviour doesn't solve anything. In a discussion forum where many people read your message, it's only decent of you to put some time into editing things down to a pure form. Quoting two screenfuls of previous messages doesn't help anyone - that's what the archives are for. Top-posting is equally rude, since it says "I couldn't be bothered to quote just the part I'm replying to, or trim the message at all." -- David Maxwell, david at vex.net|david at maxwell.net --> Although some of you out there might find a microwave oven controlled by a Unix system an attractive idea, controlling a microwave oven is easily accomplished with the smallest of microcontrollers. - Russ Hersch - (Microcontroller primer and FAQ) From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Tue Feb 10 03:29:25 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 03:29:25 -0800 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7afh20149jhn6mnkdkibpl8s2bfjkagi4n@4ax.com> On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 22:26:48 -0600, you wrote: >The only book I haven't been able to read or find is "Brokedown Palace". >Per Barnes & Noble, it's out of print, and I haven't been able to locate a >copy at any of the local book stores here. I understand it has a map of the >East in it. I would _love_ to see that map, because maybe it has features >along the Eastern Mountains (Faerie Mountains, for Easternerss) that would >allow me to place Mount Bli'aard, Mount Drift, South Mountain, Mount >Klassor, etc, etc. So, I'm looking right at my first edition paperback. :-> There are absolutely no features given of any specific mountains. What you have is Fenario, which appears to be a big tear drop on its side, with the point to the right. At the bottom center is the Great Marsh. The top right half and bottom right third is bordered by the Grimwall Mountains, with the point of the teardrop being Grimwall Pass, pierced by a large unnamed river that immediately branches out. It's actually moving out from Fenario. The left, rounded portion of the tear drop is bordered by the Wandering Forest, then, outside that, the Mountains of Faerie, which meet the Grimwall Mountains at the top. Lake Fenarr is just above the center left in the midst of the mountains and forest. Outside the ringing mountains you see very little, as the map is in a rectangular frame, with the top brushing the top of the mountains. The upper left corner simply reads "FAERIE", while the river coming in >from the west is called "River from Faerie." The upper right corner reads "EASTERN PLAINS." Marsh Lake is on the western side of Fenario, on the plains away from the Wandering Forest. No Thundering Lake could be seen. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From bio_phy at hotmail.com Tue Feb 10 07:16:21 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 09:16:21 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: This is one of those things that appears to me to be a matter of personal preference, like which way you install your roll of toilet tissue, or if your blog posts are ascending or descending. Seeing that I check the list via Hotmail, I'm a top-poster too, I'm afraid. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa >And *some* of us top post because we don't like wading through a discussion >we remember perfectly well to get to the tiny new comment at the bottom . . >. > > > > >John Trager wrote: > >>In our defense... Some of us top-post because we're stuck using suboptimal >>email clients. (Versamail 2.5 for the Palm in my case) >> >>Correct email editing takes bloody forever on this thing. >> >>rone at ennui.org (rone) wrote: >>__________ >> >> >>>Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod writes: >>>Heh... I use Microsoft Outlook, and I have all Dragaera List emails >>>automatically sent to a specific folder and organized if I was using >>>Usenet >>>or NNTP serives. >>> >>>Another warning to newbies: Please don't top-post. It's like writing >>>an answer before a question. >>> >>>rone _________________________________________________________________ Check out the great features of the new MSN 9 Dial-up, with the MSN Dial-up Accelerator. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200361ave/direct/01/ From bio_phy at hotmail.com Tue Feb 10 07:20:41 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 09:20:41 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: I *always* edit things down to "a pure form". In my case, however, the .sig in Hotmail is plopped in at the top of replied text. If you want to debate what constitutes "rude", I suggest taking that up with the good people at Microsoft. johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa >From: David Maxwell >Responding to bad behaviour with bad behaviour doesn't solve anything. > >In a discussion forum where many people read your message, it's only >decent of you to put some time into editing things down to a pure form. _________________________________________________________________ Find great local high-speed Internet access value at the MSN High-Speed Marketplace. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200360ave/direct/01/ From zarkon at illrepute.org Tue Feb 10 07:35:46 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:35:46 -0500 (EST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Johne Cook wrote: @> If you want to debate what constitutes "rude", I suggest taking that up @> with the good people at Microsoft. (Good luck finding them.) From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Tue Feb 10 07:45:54 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:45:54 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <36346D4C-5BE0-11D8-9FB9-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> I meant to say: On Feb 10, 2004, at 10:35 AM, John Klein wrote: > On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Johne Cook wrote: > @> If you want to debate what constitutes "rude", I suggest taking > that up > @> with the good people at Microsoft. > > (Good luck finding them.) The _good_ people at Microsoft can be found in the MacBU. Yeah, I'm making trouble. Horrible Gaze'n Apeman (Noam Raphael Izenberg - yes, I'm lookin' at _you_) From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Tue Feb 10 07:44:55 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:44:55 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13167DAC-5BE0-11D8-9FB9-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 10, 2004, at 10:35 AM, John Klein wrote: > On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Johne Cook wrote: > > @> If you want to debate what constitutes "rude", I suggest taking > that up > @> with the good people at Microsoft. > > (Good luck finding them.) > > Bizarre Lag Phenomena (Why it is sometimes hard to communicate with Noam Raphael Izenberg) From books at bofh.com Tue Feb 10 08:19:30 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 09:19:30 -0700 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040210161930.GB5604@bofh.com> On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 05:33:39PM -0600, David Rodemaker wrote: > Personally, the whole series has been ruined now that I find out that St. > Brust isn't writing this out longhand with quill and parchment... Neal Stephenson did this for _Quicksilver_. IMO, the book suffered as a result of it. I think it made him too committed to the words he had put down, and he isn't the least loquacious of authors to begin with. I shudder to think what would happen if this happened to Paarfi :) -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From books at bofh.com Tue Feb 10 09:11:29 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:11:29 -0700 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040210171129.GA6001@bofh.com> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 09:16:21AM -0600, Johne Cook wrote: > This is one of those things that appears to me to be a matter of personal > preference, like which way you install your roll of toilet tissue, or if > your blog posts are ascending or descending. Well, not that he would say that his answer is authoritative, but Steven has expressed his preference for not top-posting, and it is his list. I only mention this because he had the good sense to formulate an opinion that matches mine. :) -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 10 09:17:15 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:17:15 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <20040210171129.GA6001@bofh.com> References: <20040210171129.GA6001@bofh.com> Message-ID: On Feb 10, 2004, at 12:11 PM, Jot Powers wrote: > On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 09:16:21AM -0600, Johne Cook wrote: >> This is one of those things that appears to me to be a matter of >> personal >> preference, like which way you install your roll of toilet tissue, or >> if >> your blog posts are ascending or descending. > > Well, not that he would say that his answer is authoritative, but > Steven > has expressed his preference for not top-posting, and it is his list. > > I only mention this because he had the good sense to formulate an > opinion that matches mine. :) > > -Jot > -- > Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ > "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" > -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan > > > I have kept out of this discussion since I am not any kind of computer > professional, although I use email extensively in my business. In the > few email lists in which I participate, everyone puts new comments > above old ones. I presume that this is what you mean by "top posting". > It is also virtually universal in my business emails. My email software automatically places new comments above old ones, so I guess I assumed (I know, it makes an ass of u and me) that the computer pros who wrote it that way had a reason. However, as a good list citizen, if there is a standard that everyone agrees to I will do my best to comply. Ken From zarkon at illrepute.org Tue Feb 10 09:40:04 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:40:04 -0500 (EST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: References: <20040210171129.GA6001@bofh.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: @> > I have kept out of this discussion since I am not any kind of computer @> > professional, although I use email extensively in my business. In the @> > few email lists in which I participate, everyone puts new comments @> > above old ones. I presume that this is what you mean by "top posting". @> > It is also virtually universal in my business emails. @> @> My email software automatically places new comments above old ones, so @> I guess I assumed (I know, it makes an ass of u and me) that the @> computer pros who wrote it that way had a reason. Every time you say something like this, a little sparrow dies. I wouldn't trust a programmer to pick out my shoes. And I am one. It may help to turn off the "quote messages while replying option" and simply copy-and-paste stuff in with a ctrl-click (since I believe there's an option on the context menu that says "paste as quotation"). Or you could switch mail programs - the Mozilla mail component works decently and has many more configuration options than Mail does. Another option is to just whip out terminal and install pine, like I did. Hee hee. @> However, as a good list citizen, if there is a standard that everyone @> agrees to I will do my best to comply. Basically, which way you do it depends on how steeped you are in net culture. As culture-saturation increases, the likelihood that you will quote before posting increases. In personal e-mail, it's generally less important than it is on newsgroups and lists - top-posting makes it harder for new readers to get into the conversation, since they are given the least comprehensible message first, and the data they need to understand it is buried several screens down. Imagine the movie Memento if this helps. Also, thanks for making the effort. From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Tue Feb 10 10:07:39 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:07:39 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: References: <20040210171129.GA6001@bofh.com> Message-ID: <0351F5AF-5BF4-11D8-9FB9-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> From John Klein: > Basically, which way you do it depends on how steeped you are in net > culture. Eventually some go the third way, which is to interleave comments directly after the salient point one wishes to address. > As culture-saturation increases, the likelihood that you will > quote before posting increases. Culture saturation lulls you (read: me) into the false sense you're actually having a conversation with the person you are replying to, and thus leads to the tendency to interleave replies with with each sentence as it occurs. > In personal e-mail, it's generally less > important than it is on newsgroups and lists - Interleaving is often more useful on personal (informal) e-mail, which is, in fact, more like a conversation than multi-participant list discussions are, and it can get exasperating to have every sentence you wrote appended with a comment (or worse have sentences interrupted in the middle). > top-posting makes it harder > for new readers to get into the conversation, since they are given the > least comprehensible message first, and the data they need to > understand > it is buried several screens down. Interleaving at least goes point by point, which is good for clarity's sake (as long as multiple replies (and parenthetical side-statements) don't get nested too deeply), but, as you can see, it does have its own drawbacks. > Imagine the movie Memento if this helps. I prefer the I Never Promised You A Rose Garden approach to E-mail. Help! I'm an Orange Zebra! (Noam Raphael Izenberg) From bryann at bryann.net Tue Feb 10 10:16:11 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:16:11 -0600 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I'm going to add a page to my website for my (completely unauthorized) musings on Dragaeran Geography, as well as my attempts at actually mapping the place. That way I can include images/graphics, and perhaps a database of all the places in Mr. Brust's novels. I'll send another message when this is ready, for anyone who is interested in a Dragaeran Geography. Bryan From bryann at bryann.net Tue Feb 10 10:11:45 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:11:45 -0600 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: <7afh20149jhn6mnkdkibpl8s2bfjkagi4n@4ax.com> Message-ID: > There are absolutely no features given of any specific mountains. > What you have is Fenario, which appears to be a big tear drop on its > side, with the point to the right. At the bottom center is the Great > Marsh. The top right half and bottom right third is bordered by the > Grimwall Mountains, with the point of the teardrop being Grimwall > Pass, pierced by a large unnamed river that immediately branches out. > It's actually moving out from Fenario. > > The left, rounded portion of the tear drop is bordered by the > Wandering Forest, then, outside that, the Mountains of Faerie, which > meet the Grimwall Mountains at the top. Lake Fenarr is just above the > center left in the midst of the mountains and forest. > > Outside the ringing mountains you see very little, as the map is in a > rectangular frame, with the top brushing the top of the mountains. > The upper left corner simply reads "FAERIE", while the river coming in > from the west is called "River from Faerie." The upper right corner > reads "EASTERN PLAINS." > > Marsh Lake is on the western side of Fenario, on the plains away from > the Wandering Forest. No Thundering Lake could be seen. I wonder if "River from Faerie" is the same as "Fairie River", which I believe is what the Easterns call the Eastern River (sorry, don't have text in front of me). Let me put that on the backburner, I'll dig up all the text on the Eastern River, maybe "Lake Fenarr" is the point I can connect the West to the East. Bryan From mklahn at mac.com Tue Feb 10 10:12:00 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:12:00 -0600 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9F3F36EE-5BF4-11D8-9CEC-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Feb 9, 2004, at 21:19 , h christmas wrote: > On 9.2.04 10:37, "Matthew Klahn" wrote: > yes, but you do not have the options that you have with an x86 based > machine. but then, you also don't have to do any research. Apple will > tell > you what you can use. True enough. Few options for the proprietary motherboard and processors. In fact, one wonders if the board goes if it is just time to upgrade. That's actually what always happened to me when I would have something major go wrong with a PC I'd built; it was a great excuse to get a better motherboard & processor, which then used DIMMs instead of SIMMs, so I'd have to get more memory, different harddrive, etc. > Hopefully Apple will stop their crippling DVD drives and allow their > DVD+R > capable drives to actually write that way soon instead of just DVD-R. I've never had a SuperDrive, so I guess I don't know this particular issue. I do hate how Apple tends to cripple hardware, though. They have this issue with the video cards they put into the consumer machines; in order to differentiate between consumer & pro models, they only let you do monitor mirroring instead of spanning. Kinda irritating... > you do have to note, however, that Apple has built many of their cases > to > limit the number of optical drives you can add. If, for some reason, > you > wanted a ZIP drive and two optical drives in the Quicksilver line, you > were > out of luck. The new G5s also have an insane limit of two internal hard > drives, I believe, which makes it impossible if you want to have a > raid and > a separate boot drive. Bad decision on Apple's part I would say. But > then > they want you to buy the Xserve if you want to raid. Much of your > expansion, > should you want to expand either with optical or hard drives, must be > done > with external drives which are more expensive and take up more space. True, true. They do push for external storage more. But, I think that their cases are marvels of engineering compared to any PC case I've ever seen. They are better laid out, but more limiting. Again, I also hope they will change this in future revs like they did with the G4 cases. > This is actually surprising and not all that true for the film industry > where some houses have moved from Sun to Linux lately. I work with a > film > major who would not consider doing his editing on compositing on a mac > as > there are better software packages (for less money) for his PC. Ok, I guess Pixar itself is only just now switching over to Macs now that the G5s are out (they've ported Renderman to Mac OS X, btw). But, while I don't have names of studios, I do hear that Final Cut Pro is becoming widely adopted for film editing. I know the Coen brothers recently did a film using FCP. From what I understand, it's becoming widely adopted, but maybe I was overstating? And, also from what I hear, Final Cut Express ($299) is pretty darn good for the cost. Are you sure this file major isn't misinformed/biased? Have they researched all the options? $1100 G4 iBook + $299 FCE seems like a pretty darn good deal now that they've added real-time rendering to FCE... > Most modifications to the iMac, except for the easily accessible one > stick > of RAM will, however, void your warranty. But the iMac is great for > someone > who primarily wants to save space, surf, email and do word processing, > which > is much of the population. Right. I actually just read a quote that something like 80% of the computer using public don't use expansion in any computer they buy. (Lies, damned lies and statistics, though.) > All in all I think both platforms have their uses and like them both > for > different reasons. The thing that bothers me most about both platforms > are > the zealots, but that bothers me about anything. I think you'll find zealots on all sides of this argument. In my experience, Mac people tend to be more defensive (hey, they just spent thousands of dollars, what do you expect?), Windows people tend to be more scornful and Linux people tend to be more arrogant. Heck, I was once an arrogant Linux user! But, it's basically a holy war; as you say, all are good for certain things. But, my original thesis wasn't that Macs are the best, but that for what Steve does, maybe it's a better alternative. I guess that got lost in the noise & fury. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From matthew at infodancer.org Tue Feb 10 10:25:16 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:25:16 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040210182516.GC10377@infodancer.org> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 09:16:21AM -0600, Johne Cook wrote: > This is one of those things that appears to me to be a matter of personal > preference, like which way you install your roll of toilet tissue, or if > your blog posts are ascending or descending. It may appear that way to you, but the inline-post style evolved on the early Internet (and systems that predate the internet) as the best way to communicate ideas in a forum where messages do not always arrive, and when they arrive, do not always do so in strictly sequential order (eg, usenet). In other words, this posting style entered common use *for a reason*. Many people now choose to use other styles, such as top posting. They view this as a matter of personal taste, but that is an illusion. In truth, they are almost universally guided towards top posting by their email client, in subtle, nefarious ways that they are not even aware of. Such seemingly minor influences as where the cursor is placed or how the editted message is handled all contribute to this. And what most people who top post do not realize is that these cues are generated by their software, software which first began to interface with the Internet while Microsoft was feeling extremely threatened by the new thing that they didn't understand or handle well. Is it any wonder that Microsoft software encourages this behavior -- behavior that is actively, if unintentionally, hostile to the Internet community? What amazes me is not that Microsoft wrote software to encourage top posting... not that people do it... but that they think it's their own idea. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From mklahn at mac.com Tue Feb 10 10:35:50 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:35:50 -0600 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: <20040210040116.GH11940@mail> References: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> <20040210040116.GH11940@mail> Message-ID: On Feb 9, 2004, at 22:01 , David Maxwell wrote: > In a discussion forum where many people read your message, it's only > decent of you to put some time into editing things down to a pure form. > Quoting two screenfuls of previous messages doesn't help anyone - > that's > what the archives are for. You know, I've wondered for the past couple of days if the mailing list might be better presented in some form of web forum, like phpbb or ubbthreads. I say this not so that we can have picture sigs or any of that crap, but rather just that it would be much easier to trim out stuff and might make reading a particular thread a little nicer. Also, if you ignore an entire thread, you don't have to delete it from your Inbox. I know that most people won't like this suggestion, but it occurred to me. Oh, and, you can do things like password protect the forums and have people have to register to post, etc. so that you don't have trouble with bots posting, etc. Thoughts, opinions, flames? Btw, I do appreciate having this mailing list, and I also appreciate the people that make it possible. I'm not trying to offend anyone or raise any hackles, but just wondering something outloud... err... in text. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 10 10:34:32 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:34:32 -0500 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <9F3F36EE-5BF4-11D8-9CEC-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <9F3F36EE-5BF4-11D8-9CEC-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: > >> Most modifications to the iMac, except for the easily accessible one >> stick >> of RAM will, however, void your warranty. But the iMac is great for >> someone >> who primarily wants to save space, surf, email and do word >> processing, which >> is much of the population. > > Right. I actually just read a quote that something like 80% of the > computer using public don't use expansion in any computer they buy. > (Lies, damned lies and statistics, though.) > >> Since my Apple II which I purchased in 1979 and modified extensively, the only computer I needed to modify was a PC. That was because it didn't come with anything! All I have ever added to a Mac was RAM and an airport card. I use my firewire and USB ports for everything else I need (scanner, printer, palm pilot, etc) From michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com Tue Feb 10 10:29:49 2004 From: michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com (Michael Angelo Tripp-Russo) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:29:49 -0600 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! References: <9F3F36EE-5BF4-11D8-9CEC-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <4029231D.1040806@tripp-russo.com> I happened to run across this in my in-box from a fellow developer today -- some of you may appreciate it, either way I think it is amusing. http://www-edlab.cs.umass.edu/~ahelblin/misc/mac.html - Angelo From jda3 at njit.edu Tue Feb 10 10:44:08 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:44:08 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <20040210182516.GC10377@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <0HSV0042FTCWR2@mta3.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > What amazes me is not that Microsoft wrote software to encourage > top posting... not that people do it... but that they think it's > their own idea. Actually... Microsoft Outlook gives you the option to top or bottom post depending on your preferences. Either way, PINE is lame. There is no reason to use Telnet/Unix based programs anymore unless you want to be "cool" and avoid proprietary programs such as Microsoft Outlook. Outlook does everything you need. From jalipaz at stanford.edu Tue Feb 10 10:52:16 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:52:16 -0800 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: References: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> <20040210040116.GH11940@mail> Message-ID: > >Thoughts, opinions, flames? Btw, I do appreciate having this mailing >list, and I also appreciate the people that make it possible. I'm >not trying to offend anyone or raise any hackles, but just wondering >something outloud... err... in text. > I like it the way it is-- jaa From jda3 at njit.edu Tue Feb 10 10:48:52 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:48:52 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0HSV00C9TTK2J9@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > You know, I've wondered for the past couple of days if the mailing list > might be better presented in some form of web forum, like phpbb or > ubbthreads. I say this not so that we can have picture sigs or any of > that crap, but rather just that it would be much easier to trim out > stuff and might make reading a particular thread a little nicer. Also, > if you ignore an entire thread, you don't have to delete it from your > Inbox. I know that most people won't like this suggestion, but it > occurred to me. Oh, and, you can do things like password protect the > forums and have people have to register to post, etc. so that you don't > have trouble with bots posting, etc. > > Thoughts, opinions, flames? Btw, I do appreciate having this mailing > list, and I also appreciate the people that make it possible. I'm not > trying to offend anyone or raise any hackles, but just wondering > something outloud... err... in text. I personally think this would be best as a Usenet. Newsgroups are great and I'm sure there would be no problem with people using Outlook, Forte, Nutscrape or anyone else's favorite NNTP. From michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com Tue Feb 10 11:03:52 2004 From: michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com (Michael Angelo Tripp-Russo) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:03:52 -0600 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) References: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> <20040210040116.GH11940@mail> Message-ID: <40292B18.9000207@tripp-russo.com> > > You know, I've wondered for the past couple of days if the mailing > list might be better presented in some form of web forum, like phpbb > or ubbthreads. I say this not so that we can have picture sigs or any > of that crap, but rather just that it would be much easier to trim out > stuff and might make reading a particular thread a little nicer. Also, > if you ignore an entire thread, you don't have to delete it from your > Inbox. I know that most people won't like this suggestion, but it > occurred to me. Oh, and, you can do things like password protect the > forums and have people have to register to post, etc. so that you > don't have trouble with bots posting, etc. > > Thoughts, opinions, flames? Btw, I do appreciate having this mailing > list, and I also appreciate the people that make it possible. I'm not > trying to offend anyone or raise any hackles, but just wondering > something outloud... err... in text. I personally agree with you and I think this has been discussed before, there isn't anyone stopping anyone from creating such a forum. What we have here though is a system that is pretty proactive about involving everyone in a conversation (most of the time about Dragaera, sometime about Steve, and the rest of the time well, I think you can guess) I think we also get a higher readership rate with the list because the content is delivered directly to the inbox. I also think the mailing list receives more rhetoric than a posting board would, which may or may not be a bad thing depending on your tastes (I can say personally I've got 1400 unread dragaera list e-mails spanning the last year, when I don't have time it just goes on the back burner and most of the topics have little for me to comment on after such a period of time.) I don't think a posting board would have topic death near how it happens here, and with a moderated system we would also be much less likely to have duplicate topic threads. It is what it is, what gets me is I *think* there are systems that will allow you to basically run a posting board and have the members reply either at the board or through e-mail to the board and each user can choose to have all replies to topics they are involved in (or all topics) sent to their mail box. That would essentially make it both and at the moment our 'Archives' work like a write once posting board, so it is possible for new readers to see where we have been in the past etc. That's pretty much what I think on the matter for all that it's worth. - Angelo From J.Millen-99 at student.lboro.ac.uk Tue Feb 10 11:13:10 2004 From: J.Millen-99 at student.lboro.ac.uk (Jim Millen) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:13:10 -0000 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: <0HSV00C9TTK2J9@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <001101c3f009$ec92ee50$5101a8c0@JIMSNOTEBOOK> > -----Original Message----- > From: Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod [mailto:jda3 at njit.edu] > Sent: 10 February 2004 18:49 > To: 'Matthew Klahn'; 'SKZB List' > Subject: RE: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) > I personally think this would be best as a Usenet. Newsgroups > are great and I'm sure there would be no problem with people > using Outlook, Forte, Nutscrape or anyone else's favorite NNTP. rec.arts.sf.written.steven-brust, perhaps? Although this is certainly a busy list, not entirely sure there is enough interest to justify newsgroup creation. Worth a poll for opinions though. -- Jim Millen From davids at kithrup.com Tue Feb 10 11:12:42 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 11:12:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <0HSV0042FTCWR2@mta3.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: >> What amazes me is not that Microsoft wrote software to encourage >> top posting... not that people do it... but that they think it's >> their own idea. > >Actually... Microsoft Outlook gives you the option to top or bottom >post depending on your preferences. Either way, PINE is lame. Is not. So *much* is not. > There is no reason to use Telnet/Unix based programs anymore Now *there's* a statement that Microsloth would just love to hear everyone say. Oh, never mind that e-mail is theoretically plain text, no, no, you simply *must* have a GUI, and an e-mail client that displays pretty fonts and html, and javascript, and animated bouncing frigging pictures. Feh. Hiss. Spit. > unless you want to be "cool" and avoid proprietary programs such as >Microsoft Outlook. Or you don't want the up-front or hidden costs of being locked into Nanosquishy's frigging bloated monster of an e-mail client. > > Outlook does everything you need. > Yeah, like act as the greatest infective vector since the ANOPHELES MOSQUITO!!!!! Got MyDoom? Feh, again. From zarkon at illrepute.org Tue Feb 10 11:28:33 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:28:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: @> Actually... Microsoft Outlook gives you the option to top or bottom post @> depending on your preferences. Either way, PINE is lame. There is no reason @> to use Telnet/Unix based programs anymore unless you want to be "cool" and @> avoid proprietary programs such as Microsoft Outlook. Outlook does @> everything you need. Actually... Pine gives you the option to top or bottom post depending on your preferences, but doesn't make the default something damned stupid. Either way, Outlook is lame. There is no reason to use Microsoft based programs anymore unless you want to be infected with virii every ten minutes and make your e-mail process take six times as long. Pine does everything you need for e-mail, and doesn't claim to do anything else. From xmasberry at mail.com Tue Feb 10 11:24:59 2004 From: xmasberry at mail.com (h christmas) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:24:59 -0700 Subject: Mac vs PC War--delete if not interested! In-Reply-To: <9F3F36EE-5BF4-11D8-9CEC-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: On 10.2.04 11:12, "Matthew Klahn" wrote: > > On Feb 9, 2004, at 21:19 , h christmas wrote: > >> On 9.2.04 10:37, "Matthew Klahn" wrote: > >> you do have to note, however, that Apple has built many of their cases >> to >> limit the number of optical drives you can add. If, for some reason, >> you >> wanted a ZIP drive and two optical drives in the Quicksilver line, you >> were >> out of luck. The new G5s also have an insane limit of two internal hard >> drives, I believe, which makes it impossible if you want to have a >> raid and >> a separate boot drive. Bad decision on Apple's part I would say. But >> then >> they want you to buy the Xserve if you want to raid. Much of your >> expansion, >> should you want to expand either with optical or hard drives, must be >> done >> with external drives which are more expensive and take up more space. > > True, true. They do push for external storage more. But, I think that > their cases are marvels of engineering compared to any PC case I've > ever seen. They are better laid out, but more limiting. Again, I also > hope they will change this in future revs like they did with the G4 > cases. > I hope so too. their cases are beautiful, but I like having internal expandability because I do not want a bunch of external drives sitting around. I worry because Jobs is the one who originally wanted to seal the cases closed so that users could not touch the insides at all (before he left the company the first time). hopefully he will let the users control their machines a little bit more than he would like. >> This is actually surprising and not all that true for the film industry >> where some houses have moved from Sun to Linux lately. I work with a >> film >> major who would not consider doing his editing on compositing on a mac >> as >> there are better software packages (for less money) for his PC. > > Ok, I guess Pixar itself is only just now switching over to Macs now > that the G5s are out (they've ported Renderman to Mac OS X, btw). But, > while I don't have names of studios, I do hear that Final Cut Pro is > becoming widely adopted for film editing. I know the Coen brothers > recently did a film using FCP. From what I understand, it's becoming > widely adopted, but maybe I was overstating? I think for major film editing and compositing apple is not a front runner, Linux may be moving into that position replacing SUN. But the g5 xserve/xraids may change that. A Unix based system was a very smart move for Apple as it is really making the platform more accessible. > > And, also from what I hear, Final Cut Express ($299) is pretty darn > good for the cost. Are you sure this file major isn't > misinformed/biased? Have they researched all the options? $1100 G4 > iBook + $299 FCE seems like a pretty darn good deal now that they've > added real-time rendering to FCE... The real-time rendering in FCP has a ways to go, from what I have seen. In fact, we were noting the other day that iMovie seems to do better in real-time rendering. FCP will not even attempt real-time rendering if you do not have the hardware apple has blessed, where other applications will. My colleague uses Vegas Video (now owned by Sony) and its price for him, as a student, was around that of FCP and it has done real-time rendering longer than FCP and with more features, and better. He has tried FCP and even his Apple-devoted roommate prefers Vegas to FCP, which he has been using for some time. Plus his machine was way more powerful than an iBook and cheaper for him to build. He does love his powerbook, though. > > I think you'll find zealots on all sides of this argument. In my > experience, Mac people tend to be more defensive (hey, they just spent > thousands of dollars, what do you expect?), Windows people tend to be > more scornful and Linux people tend to be more arrogant. Heck, I was > once an arrogant Linux user! But, it's basically a holy war; as you > say, all are good for certain things. But, my original thesis wasn't > that Macs are the best, but that for what Steve does, maybe it's a > better alternative. I guess that got lost in the noise & fury. I didn't take any of your comments as those of a zealot and I apologize if it seemed that I did. I work with people who will rampage if you even mention that apple may have done something not very well. those are the zealots. not the people who present views weighing facts and opinions and have a preference one way or another. holly > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > From zarkon at illrepute.org Tue Feb 10 11:21:31 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:21:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <0351F5AF-5BF4-11D8-9FB9-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> References: <20040210171129.GA6001@bofh.com> <0351F5AF-5BF4-11D8-9FB9-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: @> > In personal e-mail, it's generally less @> > important than it is on newsgroups and lists - @> @> Interleaving is often more useful on personal (informal) e-mail, which @> is, in fact, more like a conversation than multi-participant list @> discussions are, @> and it can get exasperating to have every sentence you wrote appended @> with a comment (or worse have sentences interrupted in the middle). I generally find it exasperating only when the person involved has set their auto-line-break to something greater than 72 characters. @> > Imagine the movie Memento if this helps. @> @> I prefer the I Never Promised You A Rose Garden approach to E-mail. As long as it's not the David Lynch approach to e-mail... From frank at exit.com Tue Feb 10 11:37:44 2004 From: frank at exit.com (Frank Mayhar) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 11:37:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: <001101c3f009$ec92ee50$5101a8c0@JIMSNOTEBOOK> Message-ID: <200402101937.i1AJbick067964@realtime.exit.com> Jim Millen wrote: > rec.arts.sf.written.steven-brust, perhaps? Sure, do a CFV. I won't subscribe, though. > Although this is certainly a busy list, not entirely sure there is > enough interest to justify newsgroup creation. Worth a poll for > opinions though. Typically, with the sole exception of the Risks Digest, creation of a newsgroup to replace a mailing list has spelled the doom of the mailing list. You want a newsgroup, gateway the mailing list into a local one. Don't force the rest of us into the same situation. And can we please drop the MAC-versus-PC and forum-versus-mailing list arguments. Oh, not to mention the crap about how Outlook is wonderful and text-based mailers are obsolete. I'm using a text-based mailer (and editing this in vi) RIGHT NOW. Sure, the arguments about who Mario isn't and whether Paarfi has yet been sliced into little pieces by Aliera can be tiresome, but at least they are ON TOPIC. Feh, indeed. -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/ http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/ From jda3 at njit.edu Tue Feb 10 11:36:02 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:36:02 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0HSV00KX5VRO5Z@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > Actually... Pine gives you the option to top or bottom post depending on > your preferences, but doesn't make the default something damned stupid. > Either way, Outlook is lame. There is no reason to use Microsoft based > programs anymore unless you want to be infected with virii every ten > minutes and make your e-mail process take six times as long. Pine does > everything you need for e-mail, and doesn't claim to do anything else. I've never received a virus using Microsoft Outlook. And instead of email only taking 1 nano-second, it takes 6... can you really tell the difference? From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 10 12:05:45 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:05:45 -0500 Subject: Let's move to something productive Message-ID: <83493125-5C04-11D8-B58B-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Mac vs PC, outlook vs other, etc., are fun to flame about, but I miss the Paarfi-like dialogue of our list members. While I personally am incapable of the flowery evasions of that style of speech, I feel that it would be inappropriate to OS discussions. Of course, there are those who talk about re-booting the Orb, etc., So, if you are bored of computer fighting, could we move to something more productive? If we cannot speculate on Vlad, Mario, Aliera, etc., then perhaps we could solve the Israel/Arab or Northern Ireland problems? Any takers? From matthew at infodancer.org Tue Feb 10 12:01:06 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:01:06 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <0HSV00KX5VRO5Z@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <0HSV00KX5VRO5Z@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20040210200106.GF10377@infodancer.org> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 02:36:02PM -0500, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > > Actually... Pine gives you the option to top or bottom post depending on > > your preferences, but doesn't make the default something damned stupid. > > Either way, Outlook is lame. There is no reason to use Microsoft based > > programs anymore unless you want to be infected with virii every ten > > minutes and make your e-mail process take six times as long. Pine does > > everything you need for e-mail, and doesn't claim to do anything else. > I've never received a virus using Microsoft Outlook. And instead of email > only taking 1 nano-second, it takes 6... can you really tell the difference? How much filtering is your mail server providing to protect you? Do you even know? -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From matthew at infodancer.org Tue Feb 10 11:59:56 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:59:56 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <0HSV0042FTCWR2@mta3.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <20040210182516.GC10377@infodancer.org> <0HSV0042FTCWR2@mta3.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20040210195955.GE10377@infodancer.org> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 01:44:08PM -0500, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > > What amazes me is not that Microsoft wrote software to encourage > > top posting... not that people do it... but that they think it's > > their own idea. > Actually... Microsoft Outlook gives you the option to top or bottom post > depending on your preferences. And how long did it take to get that option? Which option is the default? If you change it, how well does the change work? Don't start this argument; you won't win it. > Either way, PINE is lame. I don't use Pine. I used to use elm, but Pine Is Not Elm. After elm, I moved to mutt. Mutt is my client of choice. Why are you talking about pine? > There is no reason to use Telnet/Unix based programs anymore > unless you want to be "cool" and avoid proprietary programs > such as Microsoft Outlook. Well, I'll confess to wanting to avoid proprietary programs like Outlook. Hell, I'll even confess to wanting to avoid FREE programs like outlook. As for the cool thing, to each their own; I was using UNIX before it was cool, and I'll probably be using it after it stops being cool. But as for there being no reason to use UNIX based programs, I'll have you know a few facts: 1) Telnet is not UNIX. Telnet is a network protocol. 2) Even UNIX types don't use telnet anymore; they use SSH. 3) UNIX has a GUI these days. 4) Linux is not UNIX. 5) I'm sitting in front of my desktop at work. Each character I type is encrypted, then passes through a T1 to a firewall at a colocation facility, and from there to the Internet, until it is received by my computer at home, decrypted, and passed as input to my email program (mutt, not pine, remember?), and a response is generated to send back along the same path, all as fast as if I was sitting in front of the computer at home... 6) ... which I couldn't do anyway, because it doesn't have a keyboard or a monitor; it is the loud, whirring, square thing in the closet and nothing more... 7) ... and after I finish writing this email, it will be saved to a file on a 5-disk software-based SCSI RAID and passed into a mail server which I compiled with custom local modifications... 8) ... and from there, it will be passed on to the server hosting this mailing list using a protocol significantly more efficient than SMTP to the server, after looking up the DNS records for that server using another piece of customized software. > Outlook does everything you need. Everything I need? I need to eat, I need food, I need a shelter >from the elements. Outlook does these things? What I want is different. I want a platform that can do the things I described above. And whatever else I can think of. And I want software that can do it *well*. Outlook not only does not qualify, Outlook is not even in the running. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From warlord at dragon.com Tue Feb 10 12:08:14 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:08:14 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: <200402101937.i1AJbick067964@realtime.exit.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Frank Mayhar [mailto:frank at exit.com] > Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 2:38 PM > To: Jim Millen > Cc: 'Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod'; 'Matthew Klahn'; 'SKZB List' > Subject: Re: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) > > > Jim Millen wrote: > > rec.arts.sf.written.steven-brust, perhaps? > > Sure, do a CFV. I won't subscribe, though. > > > Although this is certainly a busy list, not entirely sure there is > > enough interest to justify newsgroup creation. Worth a poll for > > opinions though. > > Typically, with the sole exception of the Risks Digest, creation of a > newsgroup to replace a mailing list has spelled the doom of the > mailing list. > > You want a newsgroup, gateway the mailing list into a local one. Don't > force the rest of us into the same situation. > > And can we please drop the MAC-versus-PC and forum-versus-mailing list > arguments. Oh, not to mention the crap about how Outlook is wonderful > and text-based mailers are obsolete. I'm using a text-based mailer > (and editing this in vi) RIGHT NOW. > > Sure, the arguments about who Mario isn't and whether Paarfi has yet been > sliced into little pieces by Aliera can be tiresome, but at least they > are ON TOPIC. > > Feh, indeed. > -- In my opinion, the list is fine the way it is, though Steve obviously has the vote to carry. Truly I say to you that the words are what are important to me, and not how they get to me. I did not mean to start a flame war (it was fun though). It was just a cookie in a .sig, and I have since removed^W^W modified it. This weeks guess: Paarfi is Mario. After all, who better to deliver disinformation? W All your MACs are belong to us From davids at kithrup.com Tue Feb 10 12:18:43 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:18:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <20040210195955.GE10377@infodancer.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Matthew Hunter wrote: >As for the cool thing, to each their own; >I was using UNIX before it was cool, and I'll probably be using >it after it stops being cool. > YM "hip" (although I realize you were following the previous usage): "Being cool requires no work. Mostly it requires detachment. You can be cool and not care about being cool. Being hip requires both style and effort. You can't be hip without working at it." -- Trent the Uncatchable, from _The A.I. War_, by Daniel Keys Moran From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Tue Feb 10 12:15:19 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:15:19 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: <001101c3f009$ec92ee50$5101a8c0@JIMSNOTEBOOK> References: <0HSV00C9TTK2J9@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <001101c3f009$ec92ee50$5101a8c0@JIMSNOTEBOOK> Message-ID: <20040210201519.GA31798@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 07:13:10PM -0000, Jim Millen wrote: > rec.arts.sf.written.steven-brust, perhaps? > > Although this is certainly a busy list, not entirely sure there is > enough interest to justify newsgroup creation. Worth a poll for > opinions though. One of the classic criteria for creating a newsgroup was the presence of an active list. I for one would prefer a netnews version. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From zarkon at illrepute.org Tue Feb 10 12:13:11 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:13:11 -0500 (EST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <0HSV00KX5VRO5Z@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <0HSV00KX5VRO5Z@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: @> > Actually... Pine gives you the option to top or bottom post depending on @> > your preferences, but doesn't make the default something damned stupid. @> > Either way, Outlook is lame. There is no reason to use Microsoft based @> > programs anymore unless you want to be infected with virii every ten @> > minutes and make your e-mail process take six times as long. Pine does @> > everything you need for e-mail, and doesn't claim to do anything else. @> @> I've never received a virus using Microsoft Outlook. You are alone in this world. @> And instead of email only taking 1 nano-second, it takes 6... can you @> really tell the difference? I didn't mean the speed of sending the e-mail; that's why I said e-mail process. Pine removes a lot of the bizarre crap that Outlook foists upon you, such as mouseclicks[0]. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. In Outlook, how would I integrate it with gpg or another encryption program of my choice? How would I write a program to generate a sequence of unique signature lines for myself? How would I read e-mail remotely after downloading it to my desktop? I do all of these things right now, with Pine. [0] If you want it to. Pine will still let you use a mouse, if for some reason you think you really should. From Randi128 at aol.com Tue Feb 10 12:13:32 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:13:32 EST Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <1de.189e5089.2d5a956c@aol.com> In a message dated 02/10/2004 12:10:54 PM Eastern Standard Time, books at bofh.com writes: > Well, not that he would say that his answer is authoritative, but Steven > has expressed his preference for not top-posting, and it is his list. > > I only mention this because he had the good sense to formulate an > opinion that matches mine. :) > > -Jot > Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!!! This is bigger than Steve, bigger than me, bigger than all of us. It's not about personal preference anymore or what e-mail program you use. It's about right and wrong and what side of the fence your on. The outcome of this discussion could influence millions of people for generations of internet mailing lists. You have to understand it's about posterity. P-O-S-T-E-R-I-T-Y !!!!!!! I miss the 'good old days' when we used to fight about atheism, communism Vs capitalism Vs socialism, who is Mario and the release dates for new books. Oh well, I guess all things change. John D. Barbato, OD From books at bofh.com Tue Feb 10 12:53:33 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 13:53:33 -0700 Subject: AZ: Hungarian-ish Restaurant Message-ID: <20040210205333.GA7536@bofh.com> Seen in the AZ Republic last week. Blockquote follows: Peter Vamos ran one of the Valley's best ethnic restaurants, Peter's Budapest Cafe. Alas, the Valley masses never developed a fever for Hungarian cuisine. [...] Peter's Cafe Europe offers could sour-cherry soup ($5.50), stuffed cabage ($13.95), chicken paprikas ($13.95); palacsinta (Hungarian crepes, $1295) Wiener schnitzel ($16.95)' and Transylvanian goulash ($13.95) Hungarian desserts are among the world's best. Vamos' pastry chef whips up Hungary's supreme achievement, a Dobos torte. It's a multilayer confection of spongecake and rich chocolate buttercream, topped with a hard caramel glaze. Peter's Cafe Europe 7125 E. Fifth Ave., Scottsdale 480-874-0104 I _never_ read this section of the paper. Sometimes you just get lucky. :) -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From zarkon at illrepute.org Tue Feb 10 13:26:12 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:26:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: <20040210201519.GA31798@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <0HSV00C9TTK2J9@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> <001101c3f009$ec92ee50$5101a8c0@JIMSNOTEBOOK> <20040210201519.GA31798@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: @> > rec.arts.sf.written.steven-brust, perhaps? @> > @> > Although this is certainly a busy list, not entirely sure there is @> > enough interest to justify newsgroup creation. Worth a poll for @> > opinions though. @> @> One of the classic criteria for creating a newsgroup was the presence @> of an active list. I for one would prefer a netnews version. I think we should move this list to Livejournal. Then we could all post with crazy cat icons and bitch about our days and fill out quizzes to find out which Brust character we are! Um, anyway. While the idea of filtering out everyone who doesn't know how to use NNTP has a certain attraction, I'd suggest we keep this as a mailing list, since even technically clueless people can like Fantasy novels. On the other hand, making it a web forum would be even better for less technical people, but would make it more cumbersome for people to participate (e.g. one must visit a specific site and fill in extra fields, rather than just hitting a reply-to-all from the e-mail program they're already running anyway). From mr1 at rcosta.com Tue Feb 10 14:24:17 2004 From: mr1 at rcosta.com (Michele Riccio) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:24:17 -0500 Subject: Let's move to something productive In-Reply-To: <83493125-5C04-11D8-B58B-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <402913C1.30859.1B4F79A@localhost> On 10 Feb 2004 at 15:05, Kenneth Gorelick wrote > > So, if you are bored of computer fighting, could we move to something > more productive? If we cannot speculate on Vlad, Mario, Aliera, etc., > then perhaps we could solve the Israel/Arab or Northern Ireland > problems? Perhaps we could all chip in and hire Mario to "solve" the above problems. M Michele Riccio mr1 at rcosta.com From jalipaz at stanford.edu Tue Feb 10 14:47:48 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 14:47:48 -0800 Subject: Let's move to something productive In-Reply-To: <402913C1.30859.1B4F79A@localhost> References: <402913C1.30859.1B4F79A@localhost> Message-ID: > > >Perhaps we could all chip in and hire Mario to "solve" the above >problems. sometimes it does seem that things would move a lot quicker in the middle east if some of the now top players were no longer players at all. jaa From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 10 14:53:37 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:53:37 -0500 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <20040210161930.GB5604@bofh.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Jot Powers wrote: #On Sat, Feb 07, 2004 at 05:33:39PM -0600, David Rodemaker wrote: #> Personally, the whole series has been ruined now that I find out that St. #> Brust isn't writing this out longhand with quill and parchment... # #Neal Stephenson did this for _Quicksilver_. IMO, the book suffered as #a result of it. # #I think it made him too committed to the words he had put down, and #he isn't the least loquacious of authors to begin with. # #I shudder to think what would happen if this happened to Paarfi :) What do you think P. uses? Options: Manual dictation (a secretary) Magical dictation (an animated quill) Other... ? -- Mark A. Mandel From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 10 15:09:08 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:09:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > What do you think P. uses? Options: > > Manual dictation (a secretary) > > Magical dictation (an animated quill) > > Other... ? Presumably (following the Dumas model) he writes an outline, has a prose-farm do a first draft, then adds some color at the end. From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 10 15:07:13 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:07:13 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: <0HSV00C9TTK2J9@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: #I personally think this would be best as a Usenet. Newsgroups are great and #I'm sure there would be no problem with people using Outlook, Forte, #Nutscrape or anyone else's favorite NNTP. This list is moderated. Newsgroups are open to anyone and can get a heavy load of spammers and trolls. I've been using newsgroups since the Internet was first DARPANet (early eighties), and I *really* value the civility and, let me say, "trashlessness" of this list. -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 10 15:03:52 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:03:52 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Matthew Klahn wrote: #On Feb 9, 2004, at 22:01 , David Maxwell wrote: #> In a discussion forum where many people read your message, it's only #> decent of you to put some time into editing things down to a pure form. #> Quoting two screenfuls of previous messages doesn't help anyone - #> that's #> what the archives are for. # #You know, I've wondered for the past couple of days if the mailing list #might be better presented in some form of web forum, like phpbb or #ubbthreads. I say this not so that we can have picture sigs or any of #that crap, but rather just that it would be much easier to trim out #stuff and might make reading a particular thread a little nicer. Also, #if you ignore an entire thread, you don't have to delete it from your #Inbox. I know that most people won't like this suggestion, but it #occurred to me. Oh, and, you can do things like password protect the #forums and have people have to register to post, etc. so that you don't #have trouble with bots posting, etc. I don't use web mail when I can avoid it. I read my mail in pine. What do I lose? Flashing lights, HTML format, click-and-load pictures and music and webpages, oh my! What do I gain? Clear text (usually), no email viruses (ever). What do I already have that you say I would gain? Lessee... I can sort my mail by subject line. I can then go down the sorted index and say, - "I'll read this thread": ENTER to read; then N for next, read it, repeat as needed - "I'll delete this thread": type ':' to flag the current message in the index and move the highlight to the next one, repeat as needed; then 'A' 'D' 'X' to delete all the messages I've flagged - "I'll read this thread later": flag with ':', then 'A' 'S' to save, type name of folder to save into - "I'll export this thread into a file to download to home" ..... And so on. #Thoughts, opinions, flames? Btw, I do appreciate having this mailing #list, and I also appreciate the people that make it possible. I'm not #trying to offend anyone or raise any hackles, but just wondering #something outloud... err... in text. Discussion like this is a Good Thing. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From lister at insaneninjahero.com Tue Feb 10 15:03:10 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:03:10 -0800 Subject: Let's move to something productive In-Reply-To: References: <402913C1.30859.1B4F79A@localhost> Message-ID: <4029632E.7010707@insaneninjahero.com> Julie Alipaz wrote: >> >> >> Perhaps we could all chip in and hire Mario to "solve" the above >> problems. > > > > sometimes it does seem that things would move a lot quicker in the > middle east if some of the now top players were no longer players at all. > > jaa > > I was thinking the same thing about the east coast of the US, Washington DC particularly. Then too... productive? This list? Don't be absurd! :) Derrill From bio_phy at hotmail.com Tue Feb 10 15:17:43 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:17:43 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: >From: John Klein >It may help to turn off the "quote messages while replying option" and >simply copy-and-paste stuff in with a ctrl-click (since I believe there's >an option on the context menu that says "paste as quotation"). Or you >could switch mail programs - the Mozilla mail component works decently and >has many more configuration options than Mail does. > >Another option is to just whip out terminal and install pine, like I did. >Hee hee. > >@> However, as a good list citizen, if there is a standard that everyone >@> agrees to I will do my best to comply. > >Basically, which way you do it depends on how steeped you are in net >culture. As culture-saturation increases, the likelihood that you will >quote before posting increases. In personal e-mail, it's generally less >important than it is on newsgroups and lists - top-posting makes it harder >for new readers to get into the conversation, since they are given the >least comprehensible message first, and the data they need to understand >it is buried several screens down. Imagine the movie Memento if this helps. > >Also, thanks for making the effort. Ok, I can get this to work if I jump through hoops. I use Hotmail because I don't want to send my personal e-mail through the company's servers. I'm not enough of a Luddite to figure out how to invoke the Terminal in Win2K and learn yet another e-mail app (especially a non-GUI one). I don't particularly like this system, but it's a work-around. In my current setup, I click Reply to All and then strip out everyone but the list itself (first minor quibble), then I make my comments, strip out extraneous comments that don't apply, and click Send. In the proposed system, I'd have to turn off my signature (Hotmail insists on sticking it right up there at the top. To have the Insert as Text feature work, I have to click Tools > Insert Original Text. Two more (*@&^$) mouse clicks that I'd prefer to do away with as a keyboard-centric guy. Then I need to click in the text window to place the cursor and then to get to the bottom of the text. *Now* I can add my comments, go back up and strip out extraneous comments, and click Send. Somebody please tell me there's a better way. (my identity used to go here) _________________________________________________________________ Click here for a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From bio_phy at hotmail.com Tue Feb 10 15:25:50 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:25:50 -0600 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) Message-ID: >From: Matthew Klahn >You know, I've wondered for the past couple of days if the mailing list >might be better presented in some form of web forum, like phpbb or >ubbthreads. I'd far prefer Forums, myself. A complete php n00b, I just setup free phpbb2 forums last week on a free 1and1.com site and I think they look and work great, even at this early stage. Feel free to check it out: http://forums.milton.ws _________________________________________________________________ Click here for a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From bio_phy at hotmail.com Tue Feb 10 15:21:07 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:21:07 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: >From: Matthew Hunter >Many people now choose to use other styles, such as top posting. >They view this as a matter of personal taste, but that is an >illusion. In truth, they are almost universally guided towards >top posting by their email client, in subtle, nefarious ways >that they are not even aware of. Such seemingly minor influences >as where the cursor is placed or how the editted message is >handled all contribute to this. It's true, and it' s obnoxious. We top-post because any other way is in direct conflict with the e-mail app. I tried looking around in my Outlook program at work (no, I didn't have a choice, there), and it appears to be geared toward top-posting, too. I'm beginning to despair of using my signature anywhere ever again. _________________________________________________________________ Get some great ideas here for your sweetheart on Valentine's Day - and beyond. http://special.msn.com/network/celebrateromance.armx From bryann at bryann.net Tue Feb 10 15:33:54 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:33:54 -0600 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette Message-ID: Alright, so there's been a lot of debate of late on the top-posting vs bottom-posting vs integrated-posting (or whatever you call it)... I watched this list for about a month after joining before I posted my first message, trying to get a feel for the local etiquette. I have a few questions, if anyone cares to share an opinion: 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to both the user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only want to reply to the user, but I'm talking about when I want my reply posted back to the list. 2. I recently sent in a couple of very large messages; they were large because they were attempts to "deduce" the geography of Dragaera by using a lot of text quotes from the novels, and explaining my subsequent deductions as clearly as possible without, hopefully, being pedantic. Should I limit my posts to a certain size (ie, break up long posts into shorter ones)? This is an important question, as I am preparing to post more such "geographical deductions"... 3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here for? I've been using "Mr. Brust", but I've seen "Steve" used quite a few times. I don't know the man, so I'm not entirely comfortable assuming it's okay to refer to him by his first-name (in the third-person, even). Has he previously expressed a preference? Thanks, Bryan From bio_phy at hotmail.com Tue Feb 10 15:32:45 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:32:45 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry Message-ID: >From: Philip Hart >Presumably (following the Dumas model) he writes an outline, has >a prose-farm do a first draft, then adds some color at the end. Ooh! How do *I* get to be part of a prose-farm?! _________________________________________________________________ Create your own personal Web page with the info you use most, at My MSN. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200364ave/direct/01/ From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 10 15:43:52 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 15:43:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to both the > user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only want to > reply to the user, but I'm talking about when I want my reply posted back to > the list. Some people energetically advocate not both. > 3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here for? I've been > using "Mr. Brust", but I've seen "Steve" used quite a few times. I don't > know the man, so I'm not entirely comfortable assuming it's okay to refer to > him by his first-name (in the third-person, even). Has he previously > expressed a preference? Taste varies. I may be the only "SKZB"er, but I recommend it as analogous to YHWH. From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Tue Feb 10 16:00:36 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:00:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mailing List Etiquette Message-ID: <200402110000.i1B00ag10128@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> > I watched this list for about a month after joining before I posted my first > message, trying to get a feel for the local etiquette. Ah, I see you are already practicing proper list etiquette. Hmm... maybe some will rub off on me....:) > I have a few questions, if anyone cares to share an opinion: An opinion? On this list? > 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to both the > user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only want to > reply to the user, but I'm talking about when I want my reply posted back to > the list. I try to remember to delete the name of the person I'm replying to, but often don't. I don't think it's that big of a deal, personally. I get doubles sometimes, and just delete them. One more email to delete out of the tens or hundreds I delete/move anyway isn't something to harp about. (Hey, ya said ya wanted opinions!:) > 2. I recently sent in a couple of very large messages; they were large > because they were attempts to "deduce" the geography of Dragaera by using a > lot of text quotes from the novels, and explaining my subsequent deductions > as clearly as possible without, hopefully, being pedantic. Should I limit > my posts to a certain size (ie, break up long posts into shorter ones)? > This is an important question, as I am preparing to post more such > "geographical deductions"... Not sure about this one. I don't much care about the size, and there's always the chance that I'll get "Geographical deductions #2" before "#1" if it's broken up, so I'd just post one message. If it's really long, I'll print it out and read it on my break, if I want to (though I'll admit this is not possible for many...:). > 3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here for? I've been > using "Mr. Brust", but I've seen "Steve" used quite a few times. I don't > know the man, so I'm not entirely comfortable assuming it's okay to refer to > him by his first-name (in the third-person, even). Has he previously > expressed a preference? Well, I believe there are actually a couple of Steves on this list, so it's nice to refer to the correct one--but then, I judge by the context of the email. I believe Steven Brust goes by Steve or Steven, and doesn't mind being referred to by either, even if some of us do put him on a pedestal and feel the term "God" doesn't quite do him justice....:) Of course, then he tosses in one of his little "treats", and then I'm inclined to call him a Rat Bastard, but it's meant in the best possible way (as a member of Rat Bastards of America myself:). Never call him late for a good Hungarian dinner, though. :0 Chris "Blind man's night is music to the deaf, and everyone has *two* paths, not one, whence comes tragedy and comedy, forsooth and damn straight, son." - "The Gypsy" - Brust & Lindholm From chaosasj at bellsouth.net Tue Feb 10 16:12:23 2004 From: chaosasj at bellsouth.net (Andrew Jones) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:12:23 -0500 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40297367.5050005@bellsouth.net> Bryan Newell wrote: >2. I recently sent in a couple of very large messages; they were large >because they were attempts to "deduce" the geography of Dragaera by using a >lot of text quotes from the novels, and explaining my subsequent deductions >as clearly as possible without, hopefully, being pedantic. Should I limit >my posts to a certain size (ie, break up long posts into shorter ones)? >This is an important question, as I am preparing to post more such >"geographical deductions"... > > > It would be easier, at least I think, to put it just in one message, as you wouldn't be confused with a few messages that that can and probably would get mixed up and thrown out of order quickly. -- ["If the war by heavens gate released desire In the line of fire someone must have known That a human heart demands to be admired Cause in the Center of the Universe We are all alone"] From casca913 at gbronline.com Tue Feb 10 16:04:20 2004 From: casca913 at gbronline.com (Charlie Smith) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:04:20 -0600 Subject: Teckla 2.0 References: Message-ID: <01cc01c3f035$c15d0e60$d9d2fdd8@pentium4> ----- Original Message ----- From: "lazarus" To: Cc: "Dragaera Mailing List" Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 3:22 PM Subject: Re: Teckla 2.0 >On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 03:32:03 -0600, you wrote: > >>I recently reread "Teckla" for the first time since it originally came out >>(I freely admit it is my least favorite of Mr. Brust's works), and I found >>that it was quite a different book than I remembered. > >My problem with reading Teckla is that Steve is too damned good a >writer. He captured the emotions of a marriage's breaking apart so >perfectly, reading that book actually takes me back to the time of my >divorce. It can be very difficult to read. I can relate. I reread through the whole vladiad after I finally got caught up to Issola last year and having been going through a divorce at that time Teckla went from being my least favorite to being one of the top. I can't help but agree that he caught the emotion and confusion of a marriage falling apart with the ability that only one who has experienced it can have. If I reread it now that my Divorce is over I might not hold such a high opinion of it as I did when the experiance was fresh but till then it holds a place near the top. From warlord at dragon.com Tue Feb 10 16:22:45 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:22:45 -0500 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Philip Hart [mailto:philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU] > Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 6:09 PM > > On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > > What do you think P. uses? Options: > > > > Manual dictation (a secretary) > > > > Magical dictation (an animated quill) > > > > Other... ? > > > Presumably (following the Dumas model) he writes an outline, has > a prose-farm do a first draft, then adds some color at the end. > > If all pronouns were masculine, it would be a nice surprose. W Repent! REPENT! and right-click no more! From pgranzeau at cox.net Tue Feb 10 16:34:54 2004 From: pgranzeau at cox.net (Peter H. Granzeau) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:34:54 -0500 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040210193003.02cf6b60@pop.east.cox.net> At 17:33 02/10/2004 -0600, Bryan Newell wrote: >1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to both the >user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only want to >reply to the user, but I'm talking about when I want my reply posted back to >the list. I try to reply to one or the other, not both. In Eudora, if I just hit "Reply", 9it goes to the individual, not the list, so I use "Reply All" and delete the one I don't want. >2. I recently sent in a couple of very large messages; they were large >because they were attempts to "deduce" the geography of Dragaera by using a >lot of text quotes from the novels, and explaining my subsequent deductions >as clearly as possible without, hopefully, being pedantic. Should I limit >my posts to a certain size (ie, break up long posts into shorter ones)? >This is an important question, as I am preparing to post more such >"geographical deductions"... If you have a lot to say, I say, please put it in one post. >3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here for? I've been >using "Mr. Brust", but I've seen "Steve" used quite a few times. I don't >know the man, so I'm not entirely comfortable assuming it's okay to refer to >him by his first-name (in the third-person, even). Has he previously >expressed a preference? I don't think he has. He'd probably ask for something royal. I assume he doesn't answer to "Hay, you!" on line. Use whatever suits your fancy, I would think. -- Regards, Pete pgranzeau at cox.net From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 10 16:42:47 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:42:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Are poodle furcuts functional? http://slate.msn.com/id/2095247/ Also... Feb. 10, 2004 | PORT SULPHUR, La. (AP) -- A woman who had raised her pet leopard from a cub was mauled by the animal, but survived after a deputy shot the 100-pound cat as its jaws were clamped on its owner's head, authorities said. Julie Miles, 33, of Port Sulphur, was in fair condition Tuesday at West Jefferson Medical Center in Gretna, spokeswoman Benola Cooper said. The leopard, named Jovani, let Miles go Monday after a Plaquemines Parish sheriff's deputy shot it twice, sheriff's spokesman Maj. Charles Guey said. The deputy shot the cat a third time after it crouched to attack again, but the animal was not killed until Miles' brother-in-law, Jimmy Saunier, arrived and killed it with a shotgun blast, Guey said. Miles had been petting Jovani on Monday and was just about to leave when the cat "got hold of her," her mother, Shirley Alesich, told The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune. The family said Jovani had always been gentle in the past and that Miles had all the permits she needed for the animal. From dacileva at hotmail.com Tue Feb 10 16:30:19 2004 From: dacileva at hotmail.com (Nik Landauer) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:30:19 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) Message-ID: Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > >I personally think this would be best as a Usenet. Newsgroups are >great and I'm sure there would be no problem with people using >Outlook, Forte, Nutscrape or anyone else's favorite NNTP. And there are many free newsreaders out there for everyone, and even mail2news gateways for those who still want to use mailreaders. Also, most USENET readers other than Outlook *don't* default to top-posting, as a general rule. Since I know there are a lot of Mac users on this list, I might also mention that Thoth is a very nice Mac newsreader, albeit not a free one. That said, USENET generally includes a lot of jerks and a much lower signal:noise ratio, which I would think would discourage many people >from going that route. Perhaps a dedicated server that newsreaders could access, but that's not always feasible. Ah well, just a few thoughts. -- Nik ( Shori / Dacileva ) "You know, once you Feng Shui the organs, it's kind of cozy." - Stewie _________________________________________________________________ Plan your next US getaway to one of the super destinations here. http://special.msn.com/local/hotdestinations.armx From Gaertk at aol.com Tue Feb 10 16:59:55 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:59:55 -0500 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette Message-ID: <7B9D9305.7007F442.00048EA6@aol.com> "Bryan Newell" writes: > 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be > replying to both the user and the mailing list, or just the > list? I only reply to the list. Getting duplicates is mildly annoying (mainly from the time it takes to realise I've already read this), but it's no big deal. I believe people using Real Email Software don't even see the duplicates. > 2. I recently sent in a couple of very large messages; they > were large because they were attempts to "deduce" the > geography of Dragaera by using a lot of text quotes from > the novels, and explaining my subsequent deductions > as clearly as possible without, hopefully, being pedantic. >?Should I limit my posts to a certain size (ie, break up > long posts into shorter ones)? It won't be a problem for me until you get up to about 3MB (which is equivalent to the full text of the first 7 Vlad novels). However, some people may be using spam/virus detection software that kills email over a certain size, so hopefully they'll speak up and say what limit they're using. > 3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here > for? ?I've been using "Mr. Brust", but I've seen "Steve" > used quite a few times. ?I don't know the man, so I'm not > entirely comfortable assuming it's okay to refer to him by > his first-name (in the third-person, even). ?Has he > previously expressed a preference? I believe he is on record saying he doesn't really care. And keep in mind that several people do know him personally (and in couple cases are related to him). I myself use "Mr. Brust" or "the Author", though I think "St. Brust" is pretty cool. --KG From zarkon at illrepute.org Tue Feb 10 17:01:33 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:01:33 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: @> I watched this list for about a month after joining before I posted my first @> message, trying to get a feel for the local etiquette. You, sir, are nothing short of a demigod. @> I have a few questions, if anyone cares to share an opinion: @> @> 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to both the @> user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only want to @> reply to the user, but I'm talking about when I want my reply posted back to @> the list. Just the list if you mean the list, and just the person if you mean the person. The replies to both are mistakes. If you make mistakes occasionally, most people will not mind. @> 2. I recently sent in a couple of very large messages; they were large @> because they were attempts to "deduce" the geography of Dragaera by using a @> lot of text quotes from the novels, and explaining my subsequent deductions @> as clearly as possible without, hopefully, being pedantic. Should I limit @> my posts to a certain size (ie, break up long posts into shorter ones)? @> This is an important question, as I am preparing to post more such @> "geographical deductions"... As with the other folks who replied, I suggest keeping it as one long message rather than breaking it up. If we didn't like to read we probably wouldn't be here. @> 3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here for? I've been @> using "Mr. Brust", but I've seen "Steve" used quite a few times. I don't @> know the man, so I'm not entirely comfortable assuming it's okay to refer to @> him by his first-name (in the third-person, even). Has he previously @> expressed a preference? I called him Mr. Brust when I started, too. Then I looked further back in the archive than I had previously done, and discovered that he had indeed expressed a preference for Steve or, failing that, Brust (without the Mr.). The messages in question are here: http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi?1:mas:59:jmikhcjlblbeaehdleep http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi?1:mas:78:jmikhcjlblbeaehdleep From Gaertk at aol.com Tue Feb 10 17:18:54 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:18:54 -0500 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not Message-ID: <67A02E81.33AF1CD7.00048EA6@aol.com> "Bryan Newell" writes: > I wonder if "River from Faerie" is the same as "Fairie > River", which I believe is what the Easterns call the > Eastern River (sorry, don't have text in front of me). No. They both start from Lake Fenarr, but flow in opposite directions. If you've got the time, use the booksearch website http://dragaera.info/booksearch/ to locate all occurrences of "north", "south", "miles", etc. --KG From Gaertk at aol.com Tue Feb 10 17:15:46 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:15:46 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: <0CA3927B.786B4A49.00048EA6@aol.com> David Silberstein writes: > > On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Matthew Hunter wrote: > >> As for the cool thing, to each their own; > >> I was using UNIX before it was cool, and I'll probably be >> using it after it stops being cool. ? >> > > YM "hip" (although I realize you were following the > previous usage): > > ?"Being cool requires no work. ?Mostly it requires > detachment. ?You can be cool and not care about being > cool. ?Being hip requires both style and effort. ?You > can't be hip without working at it." > ? ?-- Trent the Uncatchable, from _The A.I. War_, by > Daniel Keys Moran How the heck did you get a copy of that? --KG From Gaertk at aol.com Tue Feb 10 17:12:40 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:12:40 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) Message-ID: <1093DCE2.71878224.00048EA6@aol.com> Mark A Mandel writes: > On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > ># I personally think this would be best as a Usenet. ># Newsgroups are great and I'm sure there would be no ># problem with people using Outlook, Forte, Nutscrape or ># anyone else's favorite NNTP. > > This list is moderated. Newsgroups are open to anyone and > can get a heavy load of spammers and trolls. I've been > using newsgroups since the Internet was first DARPANet > (early eighties), and I *really* value the civility and, > let me say, "trashlessness" of this list. The moderation of this list is very loose though. Has any post ever been censored? I am another who prefers USENET to email, and I've been looking at GMANE ( http://www.gmane.org/ ) which is a non-propogating newsserver gateway for mailing lists. Note that this simply allows people to use the list through a newsreader; it wouldn't affect people who still want to use email. Not sure if you'd get spam and trolls; I imagine most of the miscreants don't know of its existence, and it appears you have to register to access each list. Could the Powers That Be take a look at it? --KG From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 10 17:24:42 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:24:42 -0500 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <11ACC6A2-5C31-11D8-B58B-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 10, 2004, at 6:43 PM, Philip Hart wrote: >> 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to >> both the >> user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only >> want to >> reply to the user, but I'm talking about when I want my reply posted >> back to >> the list. > > Some people energetically advocate not both. > > >> 3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here for? >> I've been >> using "Mr. Brust", but I've seen "Steve" used quite a few times. I >> don't >> know the man, so I'm not entirely comfortable assuming it's okay to >> refer to >> him by his first-name (in the third-person, even). Has he previously >> expressed a preference? > > Taste varies. I may be the only "SKZB"er, but I recommend it as > analogous > to YHWH. > > I KNOW that YHWH is pronounced "adonai"--how does one pronounce SKZB? Not to mention MXYZPTLK. From davids at kithrup.com Tue Feb 10 17:26:03 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:26:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <0CA3927B.786B4A49.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: >David Silberstein writes: > >> >> ?"Being cool requires no work. ?Mostly it requires >> detachment. ?You can be cool and not care about being >> cool. ?Being hip requires both style and effort. ?You >> can't be hip without working at it." >> ? ?-- Trent the Uncatchable, from _The A.I. War_, by >> Daniel Keys Moran > >How the heck did you get a copy of that? > The first 3 chapters of tAIW, and some bits and pieces from furthur into the book, were made available by DKM, quite some time ago. Some of them are quoteable bits: http://www.kithrup.com/dkm/dkmfic/ That's all I've got, alas. From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 10 17:21:51 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:21:51 -0500 Subject: Let's move to something productive In-Reply-To: <4029632E.7010707@insaneninjahero.com> References: <402913C1.30859.1B4F79A@localhost> <4029632E.7010707@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: Ken Gorelick On Feb 10, 2004, at 6:03 PM, Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert wrote: > Julie Alipaz wrote: >>> >>> >>> Perhaps we could all chip in and hire Mario to "solve" the above >>> problems. >> sometimes it does seem that things would move a lot quicker in the >> middle east if some of the now top players were no longer players at >> all. >> jaa > > I was thinking the same thing about the east coast of the US, > Washington DC particularly. > > Then too... productive? This list? > > Don't be absurd! :) > > Derrill > I think that Washington is ALREADY a great sea of chaos. From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 10 17:20:17 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:20:17 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <735D5E53-5C30-11D8-B58B-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Ken Gorelick On Feb 10, 2004, at 6:07 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > > #I personally think this would be best as a Usenet. Newsgroups are > great and > #I'm sure there would be no problem with people using Outlook, Forte, > #Nutscrape or anyone else's favorite NNTP. > > This list is moderated. Newsgroups are open to anyone and can get a > heavy load of spammers and trolls. I've been using newsgroups since the > Internet was first DARPANet (early eighties), and I *really* value the > civility and, let me say, "trashlessness" of this list. > > -- Mark A. Mandel Of course, that leads to the inevitable question: which is better to enlarge one's manhood: witchcraft or sorcery? From dacileva at hotmail.com Tue Feb 10 17:36:52 2004 From: dacileva at hotmail.com (Nik Landauer) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:36:52 -0500 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: "Johne Cook" wrote: > >In the proposed system, I'd have to turn off my signature (Hotmail insists >on sticking it right up there at the top. To have the Insert as Text >feature work, I have to click Tools > Insert Original Text. Two more >(*@&^$) mouse clicks that I'd prefer to do away with as a keyboard-centric >guy. Then I need to click in the text window to place the cursor and then > to get to the bottom of the text. *Now* I can add my comments, >go back up and strip out extraneous comments, and click Send. > >Somebody please tell me there's a better way. Turn off Rich Text forever. :D Then select the entire message quoted, hit Ctrl-C, hit Ctrl-Home, then hit Ctrl-V. Voila, message above sig, no top-posting involved, and you can trim excess material easily. Yes, Hotmail is harder to use properly. This is intentional, and crappy of Microsoft. I'd change, but I have lost touch with too many people I care above, who still know my Hotmail address, and I dislike my ISP's mail address and mail server. I do wish this list included a Reply-To: header, personally. >(my identity used to go here) .sig <> identity. -- Nik ( Shori / Dacileva ) "You know, once you Feng Shui the organs, it's kind of cozy." - Stewie _________________________________________________________________ Get some great ideas here for your sweetheart on Valentine's Day - and beyond. http://special.msn.com/network/celebrateromance.armx From zarkon at illrepute.org Tue Feb 10 17:37:24 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:37:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: <735D5E53-5C30-11D8-B58B-0003938F1608@comcast.net> References: <735D5E53-5C30-11D8-B58B-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: @> Of course, that leads to the inevitable question: which is better to @> enlarge one's manhood: witchcraft or sorcery? Well, if we follow the standard logic that sorcery is easier, but witchcraft is more fun... (I suddenly have this wonderful vision of Morrolan slicing a spammer into great bloody chunks with Blackwand. Not to mention the possibility of an Imperial bank transfer scam...) From chaosasj at bellsouth.net Tue Feb 10 17:32:30 2004 From: chaosasj at bellsouth.net (Andrew Jones) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:32:30 -0500 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: <11ACC6A2-5C31-11D8-B58B-0003938F1608@comcast.net> References: <11ACC6A2-5C31-11D8-B58B-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4029862E.1090507@bellsouth.net> Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > > I KNOW that YHWH is pronounced "adonai"--how does one pronounce SKZB? > Not to mention MXYZPTLK. > > The answer to that is simply 42, as it is with every other question. -- ["If the war by heavens gate released desire In the line of fire someone must have known That a human heart demands to be admired Cause in the Center of the Universe We are all alone"] From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Feb 10 17:57:54 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:57:54 -0600 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum In-Reply-To: (Matthew Klahn's message of "Tue, 10 Feb 2004 12:35:50 -0600") References: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> <20040210040116.GH11940@mail> Message-ID: Matthew Klahn writes: > You know, I've wondered for the past couple of days if the mailing > list might be better presented in some form of web forum, like phpbb > or ubbthreads. Opinions are likely to vary. I, personally, have not yet found any web forum that is even vaguely tolerable from a useability point of view. I find it nearly impossible to follow multiple discussions, and I find it takes 5 times as much time to even *try* to do so (and not get as good an outcome). > I say this not so that we can have picture sigs or any > of that crap, but rather just that it would be much easier to trim out > stuff and might make reading a particular thread a little nicer. Also, > if you ignore an entire thread, you don't have to delete it from your > Inbox. I know that most people won't like this suggestion, but it > occurred to me. Oh, and, you can do things like password protect the > forums and have people have to register to post, etc. so that you > don't have trouble with bots posting, etc. I find quoting and editing to be two of the features that are far *harder* on every web forum I've played with. We don't seem to have bot problems here, or on about any other mailing list I'm on. I think that's a solved problem. The big problem, though, is finding new messages. Which is such a basic function that I'm croggled, but *nobody* has an even vaguely competent system yet. I occasionally think about trying to solve the problem, but I suspect it's a *hard* problem and my head would start tot hurt. Still, I wonder if there's a big market for a really good online forum system? > Thoughts, opinions, flames? Btw, I do appreciate having this mailing > list, and I also appreciate the people that make it possible. I'm not > trying to offend anyone or raise any hackles, but just wondering > something outloud... err... in text. It is, of course, simple and easy and fairly cheap for you to start such a web forum. Mentioning it in a posting here would be entirely appropriate, as would including it in your signature here and elsewhere, and I imagine I'd link to it from the web site. Despite the fact that *I* think it's a bad idea :-). -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Feb 10 17:58:52 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:58:52 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> (Mia McDavid's message of "Mon, 09 Feb 2004 18:30:24 -0600") References: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> Message-ID: Mia McDavid writes: > And *some* of us top post because we don't like wading through a > discussion we remember perfectly well to get to the tiny new comment > at the bottom . . . Thus producing *mixed* posts, which are nearly impossible to puzzle out. And half the time I've flipped past the little added text at the top without noticing it, and I end up skipping the message figuring it was an accidental empty post. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Feb 10 17:59:52 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:59:52 -0600 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum In-Reply-To: <001101c3f009$ec92ee50$5101a8c0@JIMSNOTEBOOK> (Jim Millen's message of "Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:13:10 -0000") References: <001101c3f009$ec92ee50$5101a8c0@JIMSNOTEBOOK> Message-ID: "Jim Millen" writes: >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod [mailto:jda3 at njit.edu] >> Sent: 10 February 2004 18:49 >> To: 'Matthew Klahn'; 'SKZB List' >> Subject: RE: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) > >> I personally think this would be best as a Usenet. Newsgroups >> are great and I'm sure there would be no problem with people >> using Outlook, Forte, Nutscrape or anyone else's favorite NNTP. > > rec.arts.sf.written.steven-brust, perhaps? > > Although this is certainly a busy list, not entirely sure there is > enough interest to justify newsgroup creation. Worth a poll for > opinions though. That'd be the right name, if people wanted to go through the *big* hassle of trying to get it created. For me, all the email groups end up being read just the same way as real newsgroups, so it makes no difference. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Feb 10 18:02:24 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:02:24 -0600 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum In-Reply-To: (Mark A. Mandel's message of "Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:07:13 -0500") References: Message-ID: Mark A Mandel writes: > On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > > #I personally think this would be best as a Usenet. Newsgroups are great and > #I'm sure there would be no problem with people using Outlook, Forte, > #Nutscrape or anyone else's favorite NNTP. > > This list is moderated. Newsgroups are open to anyone and can get a > heavy load of spammers and trolls. I've been using newsgroups since the > Internet was first DARPANet (early eighties), and I *really* value the > civility and, let me say, "trashlessness" of this list. Nope, this list is *not* moderated. Anybody can subscribe, and any subscriber can post. It is, however, true that I could fairly quickly *make* it moderated if we had a serious problem. Speaking of web forums -- if I got a decent interface to posting from the web archive, we'd have almost a perfect merger of mailing list and web forum, since people could read it either way, and post to it either way. The only thing is that *that* would open it up to spammers and random problems a lot. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From chaosasj at bellsouth.net Tue Feb 10 18:08:25 2004 From: chaosasj at bellsouth.net (Andrew Jones) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 21:08:25 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum In-Reply-To: References: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> <20040210040116.GH11940@mail> Message-ID: <40298E99.2080301@bellsouth.net> David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > The big problem, though, is finding new messages. Which is such abasic > function that I'm croggled, but *nobody* has an even vaguely competent > system yet. This is even worse on Invision boards, although PHPBB is equally as bad. The only one I've ever not experienced this problem is on an Ikon board. >>Thoughts, opinions, flames? Btw, I do appreciate having this mailing >>list, and I also appreciate the people that make it possible. I'm not >>trying to offend anyone or raise any hackles, but just wondering >>something outloud... err... in text. >> >> > >It is, of course, simple and easy and fairly cheap for you to start >such a web forum. Mentioning it in a posting here would be entirely >appropriate, as would including it in your signature here and >elsewhere, and I imagine I'd link to it from the web site. Despite >the fact that *I* think it's a bad idea :-). > > Forums present the problem of trolls, as they are easy to get into, in addition to people who think they are cool because they use l33t 5p34k. -- ["If the war by heavens gate released desire In the line of fire someone must have known That a human heart demands to be admired Cause in the Center of the Universe We are all alone"] From ehahn at isochronism.com Tue Feb 10 18:05:55 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 21:05:55 -0500 Subject: Let's move to something productive In-Reply-To: References: <402913C1.30859.1B4F79A@localhost> <4029632E.7010707@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: On 10 Feb 2004, at 8:21 PM, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > I think that Washington is ALREADY a great sea of chaos. > Maybe so, but they have the *best* burger place in the world (Five Guys). ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Feb 10 18:14:17 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:14:17 -0600 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: (Bryan Newell's message of "Tue, 10 Feb 2004 17:33:54 -0600") References: Message-ID: "Bryan Newell" writes: > 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to both the > user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only want to > reply to the user, but I'm talking about when I want my reply posted back to > the list. Just to the list. Some readers can be told about the details of the list, to do that automatically. Otherwise you have to "reply to all" and then edit out the copy to the user. There are headers that cause some mailreaders (like Pegasus) to create reply-to-list buttons in all the messages, too. > 2. I recently sent in a couple of very large messages; they were large > because they were attempts to "deduce" the geography of Dragaera by using a > lot of text quotes from the novels, and explaining my subsequent deductions > as clearly as possible without, hopefully, being pedantic. Should I limit > my posts to a certain size (ie, break up long posts into shorter ones)? > This is an important question, as I am preparing to post more such > "geographical deductions"... There's some kind of upper limit to how much people will read, and how much is appropriate to post, but I didn't think your geography posts were pushing those vague limits. Being so excellently on-topic helps, of course :-). > 3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here for? I've been > using "Mr. Brust", but I've seen "Steve" used quite a few times. I don't > know the man, so I'm not entirely comfortable assuming it's okay to refer to > him by his first-name (in the third-person, even). Has he previously > expressed a preference? The answer is obvious to me, but I can't remember if it's *official*, so I'm going to let this one go by; wouldn't want to be speaking for Steven and getting it *wrong* :-). -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Feb 10 18:16:43 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:16:43 -0600 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: <7B9D9305.7007F442.00048EA6@aol.com> (Gaertk@aol.com's message of "Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:59:55 -0500") References: <7B9D9305.7007F442.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: Gaertk at aol.com writes: > "Bryan Newell" writes: > >> 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be >> replying to both the user and the mailing list, or just the >> list? > > I only reply to the list. Getting duplicates is mildly > annoying (mainly from the time it takes to realise I've > already read this), but it's no big deal. I believe people > using Real Email Software don't even see the duplicates. I had that for a while, but I turned it off. I want the message associated with the *list*, and often the direct copy arrived first, so it was that copy that was kept and the list copy that was discarded. Oh well. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From jalipaz at stanford.edu Tue Feb 10 18:11:57 2004 From: jalipaz at stanford.edu (Julie Alipaz) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:11:57 -0800 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum In-Reply-To: References: <200402091802.i19I2WgO023448@mail.keyway.net> <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> <20040210040116.GH11940@mail> Message-ID: > >Opinions are likely to vary. I, personally, have not yet found any >web forum that is even vaguely tolerable from a useability point of >view. I find it nearly impossible to follow multiple discussions, and >I find it takes 5 times as much time to even *try* to do so (and not >get as good an outcome). I agree, I have tried to follow some web forums and usually give up. The biggest issue, besides those listed above, is that you have actually go to the web site on a regular basis to keep up---the list comes to me! jaa From rone at ennui.org Tue Feb 10 18:38:52 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:38:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <40282620.3050001@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040211023852.3D72226C45@boredom.ennui.org> Mia McDavid writes: And *some* of us top post because we don't like wading through a discussion we remember perfectly well to get to the tiny new comment at the bottom . . . Well, people should trim, certainly. Whether it's at the bottom or the top. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Tue Feb 10 18:53:23 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 18:53:23 -0800 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: <67A02E81.33AF1CD7.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <67A02E81.33AF1CD7.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:18:54 -0500, you wrote: >"Bryan Newell" writes: > >> I wonder if "River from Faerie" is the same as "Fairie >> River", which I believe is what the Easterns call the >> Eastern River (sorry, don't have text in front of me). > >No. They both start from Lake Fenarr, but flow in opposite >directions. > How does the river start in Lake Fenarr, but is called the River *From* Faerie, the opposite direction? -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From bio_phy at hotmail.com Tue Feb 10 20:22:46 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:22:46 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies Message-ID: After Googling for far too long, I haven't found a quick and convenient way to Bottom Post from Outlook *or* Eudora Pro. The answer may be out there, but it wasn't obvious. I found the answer to my question when I stopped looking and did what I was doing before this topic came up - test driving the new Mozilla Firefox 0.8 browser (which rocks) and its companion app, Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5. Guess what? Tbird bottoms posts right out of the box. Sold to the American. So how do I unsub from Hotmail and resub from Tbird? Johne Cook Wisconsin, USA _________________________________________________________________ Choose now from 4 levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage - no more account overload! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/ From rone at ennui.org Tue Feb 10 19:34:46 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:34:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040211033446.5F8B026C53@boredom.ennui.org> Matthew Klahn writes: You know, I've wondered for the past couple of days if the mailing list might be better presented in some form of web forum Absonotly. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 10 19:19:54 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:19:54 -0500 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, lazarus wrote: #On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:18:54 -0500, you wrote: # #>"Bryan Newell" writes: #> #>> I wonder if "River from Faerie" is the same as "Fairie #>> River", which I believe is what the Easterns call the #>> Eastern River (sorry, don't have text in front of me). #> #>No. They both start from Lake Fenarr, but flow in opposite #>directions. #> # #How does the river start in Lake Fenarr, but is called the River #*From* Faerie, the opposite direction? IIRC, Lake Fenarr is in the mountains that separate the Empire from the East. Two rivers flow from it. The one that flows through Fenario is flowing from the direction of the Empire (Faerie), so the name is natural. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From david at crlf.net Tue Feb 10 19:09:58 2004 From: david at crlf.net (David Maxwell) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:09:58 -0500 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040211030958.GN11940@mail> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 05:33:54PM -0600, Bryan Newell wrote: > I watched this list for about a month after joining before I posted my first > message, trying to get a feel for the local etiquette. Exactly the right thing to do in any new environment. Observe the 'locals' ;-) > I have a few questions, if anyone cares to share an opinion: > > 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to both the > user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only want to > reply to the user, but I'm talking about when I want my reply posted back to > the list. I see that the local trend swings the other way, so I'll speak up to point out that it is a divisive issue as well. In _general_ on Internet mailing lists, the appropriate action is to reply to both. There are several reasons for that. The first is that many mail clients highlight or sort mail that is To: you differently from mail that you've effectively been Bcc'd: on. Personally, if someone replies to something I wrote - I like to be aware of it, so I can check and see if they actually are asking something that I owe a response to. The second reason is that for lists with a large number of subscribers, the copy that goes via the list can be significantly slower than the direct copy - that can facilitate a quicker exchange between participants in a discussion. The third reason is that there is no standard way for users to express their preference. Since it's impractical to remember (if they've ever said) which way every subscriber prefers replies sent, it best to settle on a single universal practice. Deleting the occassional duplicate mail isn't tough - reading every list message to see if someone asked you a question, is. (One suggested, but not widely implemented way to express your preference is the Mail-Followup-To: header. http://cr.yp.to/proto/replyto.html ) The fourth reason is that if duplicate replies _really_ bother someone enough, they can make their mail software eliminate them. That all said - it looks like the vocal users here have the opposite preference. -- David Maxwell, david at vex.net|david at maxwell.net --> Any sufficiently advanced Common Sense will seem like magic... - me From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 10 19:03:15 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:03:15 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Obviously an aspirant for a Darwin Award. -- Mark A. Mandel, The Filker With No Nickname http://mark.cracksandshards.com/filk.html Now on the Filker's Bardic Webring! From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 10 19:15:49 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:15:49 -0500 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: <11ACC6A2-5C31-11D8-B58B-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: #I KNOW that YHWH is pronounced "adonai"--how does one pronounce SKZB? We do that nowadays; in the time of the Temple the High Priest pronounced it with vowels that are now unknown. I'll answer in the same tradition, using approximate International Phonetic Alphabet. 1. Either [skzb] with syllabic [z], or [sti:v] (i.e., "Steve"). #Not to mention MXYZPTLK. 2. The Superman lettercol gave two answers in the days when I was reading it as a kid and a teenager. My quotes are approximate in wording/spelling, but I'm sure of the content. a. "Just as it's spelled." I make that three syllables, [m'ksIz.ptlk], with syllabic [m] and [l]. b. "mix-YEZ-pitellick". -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 10 19:10:17 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:10:17 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: <1093DCE2.71878224.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: #Mark A Mandel writes: #> #> This list is moderated. Newsgroups are open to anyone and #> can get a heavy load of spammers and trolls. I've been #> using newsgroups since the Internet was first DARPANet #> (early eighties), and I *really* value the civility and, #> let me say, "trashlessness" of this list. # #The moderation of this list is very loose though. Has any #post ever been censored? We wouldn't necessarily know. But can any non-subscriber post to this list? If not, we have a filter right there. In my work I run 5 email lists for people on my project. In the past week or two the address of one of those lists has been receiving 2-5 emails each day, from unfamiliar addresses, that either carry the MyDoom virus or say "Your mail has been refused because (it carries a virus / you are not a subscriber to this list / ...)". None of my subscribers ever sees those, because all mail from non-subscribers gets held for moderator's (my) approval unless I have put the sender on a whitelist, which I do for people like programmers and sysadmins who sometimes need to send notices to my lists. I haven't seen any of that cr at p here, have you? -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Tue Feb 10 19:00:44 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 19:00:44 -0800 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4j6j2091kf2l7l7hn3dqsc9drnnbn67rqc@4ax.com> On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:01:33 -0500 (EST), you wrote: >I called him Mr. Brust when I started, too. Then I looked further back in >the archive than I had previously done, and discovered that he had indeed >expressed a preference for Steve or, failing that, Brust (without the >Mr.). The messages in question are here: > ">http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi?1:mas:59:jmikhcjlblbeaehdleep >Oh, and by the way, you were at a small convention in Columbus, >Mississippi way back in 1995, no? I sure was. Had a blast, too." Wolfcon. Too cool, I was there, too. We did have a great time. Perfect sized con, I thought. Great poker game, too. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From books at bofh.com Wed Feb 11 05:51:19 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 06:51:19 -0700 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040211135119.GA13427@bofh.com> Great questions. > 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to both the > user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only want to > reply to the user, but I'm talking about when I want my reply posted back to > the list. Some people prefer not to be CC'd. I'm personally ambivalent, but as a general rule only send to the list. > 2. I recently sent in a couple of very large messages; they were large > because they were attempts to "deduce" the geography of Dragaera by using a > lot of text quotes from the novels, and explaining my subsequent deductions > as clearly as possible without, hopefully, being pedantic. Should I limit > my posts to a certain size (ie, break up long posts into shorter ones)? > This is an important question, as I am preparing to post more such > "geographical deductions"... Your email should be the size required to get your point across. If that is big, so be it. Don't impose artifical boundaries. > 3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here for? I've been > using "Mr. Brust", but I've seen "Steve" used quite a few times. I don't > know the man, so I'm not entirely comfortable assuming it's okay to refer to > him by his first-name (in the third-person, even). Has he previously > expressed a preference? He has expressed a preference not to be called Mr. Brust, but either Steve or Steven. I have chosen to go with Steven, because it is what you see people who know him and consider him a friend use (in particular, the *D-Bs). -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From dd-b at dd-b.net Wed Feb 11 07:15:20 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 09:15:20 -0600 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum In-Reply-To: (Mark A. Mandel's message of "Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:10:17 -0500") References: Message-ID: Mark A Mandel writes: > On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > #Mark A Mandel writes: > #> > #> This list is moderated. Newsgroups are open to anyone and > #> can get a heavy load of spammers and trolls. I've been > #> using newsgroups since the Internet was first DARPANet > #> (early eighties), and I *really* value the civility and, > #> let me say, "trashlessness" of this list. > # > #The moderation of this list is very loose though. Has any > #post ever been censored? > > We wouldn't necessarily know. But can any non-subscriber post to this > list? If not, we have a filter right there. I haven't turned on message moderation ever on this list, so the messages have all gone out before I had a chance to consider them. But I have had subscriber-only posting turned on from day one. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From mklahn at mac.com Wed Feb 11 07:46:48 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 09:46:48 -0600 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <80EDD4B5-5CA9-11D8-8928-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Feb 10, 2004, at 21:10 , Mark A Mandel wrote: > I haven't seen any of that cr at p here, have you? No, and thank you very much! I didn't mean to say that there were any spam/trolls on the list, but that it can be a problem with forums unless you take steps to make it not a problem. Sorry for any confusion there. So, I guess the general consensus is that a forum would not be preferred to a list format. Just wanted to bring it up in light of the off-topicness of some of the posts, and the complaints thereof. I myself wouldn't open a forum as an alternative to this list because: a) I don't have any hosting space to do so b) If you throw a party and no-one comes, is it a party? But, thanks to everyone for voicing an opinion. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From mneme at io.com Wed Feb 11 08:18:50 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:18:50 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16426.21994.722897.189516@fnord.io.com> Philip Hart writes: >On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: >> What do you think P. uses? Options: >> >> Manual dictation (a secretary) >> Magical dictation (an animated quill) >> Other... ? >Presumably (following the Dumas model) he writes an outline, has >a prose-farm do a first draft, then adds some color at the end. IIRC, this is actually a false rumor -- Dumas did often work with collaberators (one at a time, usually), but no more. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From mneme at io.com Wed Feb 11 08:26:13 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:26:13 -0600 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: <20040211030958.GN11940@mail> References: <20040211030958.GN11940@mail> Message-ID: <16426.22437.905823.559108@fnord.io.com> David Maxwell writes: >The third reason is that there is no standard way for users to >express their preference. Actually, technically, there is -- the list software could ignore subscribers specified in the header as recipients if they had so requested. Or users can set reply-to to the list, of course. >it best to settle on a single universal practice. Deleting the >occassional duplicate mail isn't tough - reading every list message >to see if someone asked you a question, is. I generally prefer to get private CCs myself. >(One suggested, but not widely implemented way to express your >preference is the Mail-Followup-To: header. >http://cr.yp.to/proto/replyto.html ) Hadn't realized that was a DJB, but did know about it (and, in fact, the custom extensions on my mailer do implement something resembling this). An alternative is the Mailing-List: stuff. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From bio_phy at hotmail.com Wed Feb 11 08:33:47 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:33:47 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry Message-ID: >From: Joshua Kronengold > >Presumably (following the Dumas model) he writes an outline, has > >a prose-farm do a first draft, then adds some color at the end. > >IIRC, this is actually a false rumor -- Dumas did often work with >collaberators (one at a time, usually), but no more. I have read a number of things to the contrary. I'd be interested in seeing linkage to support this statement, as the things I'd read awhle ago (when I was in my Dumas phase after reading TPG and FHYA) supported the prose farm story. jc _________________________________________________________________ Let the advanced features & services of MSN Internet Software maximize your online time. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200363ave/direct/01/ From bio_phy at hotmail.com Wed Feb 11 08:38:25 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:38:25 -0600 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette Message-ID: >From: Joshua Kronengold >I generally prefer to get private CCs myself. I religiously strip out the annoying CCs. I figure that anything I say is meant for the entire list and if I want to address a specific comment to a specific indivual, I'd rather have that be something that I do as the exception rather than the rule. The Reply to All thing is one of the more obnoxious things that I deal with, and one reason I don't post more. Of course, with the constant "who is Mario" discussions, we're probably not missing anything. ;) _________________________________________________________________ Plan your next US getaway to one of the super destinations here. http://special.msn.com/local/hotdestinations.armx From mneme at io.com Wed Feb 11 08:53:49 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:53:49 -0600 Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16426.24093.752267.943566@fnord.io.com> Johne Cook writes: >>From: Joshua Kronengold >> >Presumably (following the Dumas model) he writes an outline, has >> >a prose-farm do a first draft, then adds some color at the end. >>IIRC, this is actually a false rumor -- Dumas did often work with >>collaberators (one at a time, usually), but no more. >I have read a number of things to the contrary. I'd be interested in seeing >linkage to support this statement, as the things I'd read awhle ago (when I >was in my Dumas phase after reading TPG and FHYA) supported the prose farm >story. Interesting. Because what I've read on the subject includes hard evidence of him working with collaborators (Maquet, chiefly, but not solely, eventually leading to a lawsuit), and huge controversies at the time on whether he ever wrote his own books rather than having them largely be written by his collaborators, but not the "prose farm" concept I've seen only in rumors. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From matthew at infodancer.org Wed Feb 11 11:57:46 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 13:57:46 -0600 Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040211195746.GA6643@infodancer.org> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 05:21:07PM -0600, Johne Cook wrote: > >From: Matthew Hunter > >Many people now choose to use other styles, such as top posting. > >They view this as a matter of personal taste, but that is an > >illusion. In truth, they are almost universally guided towards > >top posting by their email client, in subtle, nefarious ways > >that they are not even aware of. Such seemingly minor influences > >as where the cursor is placed or how the editted message is > >handled all contribute to this. > It's true, and it' s obnoxious. We top-post because any other way is in > direct conflict with the e-mail app. I tried looking around in my Outlook > program at work (no, I didn't have a choice, there), and it appears to be > geared toward top-posting, too. I'm beginning to despair of using my > signature anywhere ever again. Supposedly there is a patch out that fixes the quoting in outlook express. I don't know about raw outlook. And since I don't use that patch, I don't know where to find it. But if you go to rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan and ask about it, someone will doubtlessly direct you appropriately. Perhaps even googling there will give you sufficient answer. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From carla.hunt.b at oncogene.com Wed Feb 11 08:55:15 2004 From: carla.hunt.b at oncogene.com (Carla Hunt) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 11:55:15 -0500 Subject: Mailing list vs. forum (was: warning to newbies) Message-ID: On Feb 10, 2004, at 21:10 , Mark A Mandel wrote: >> I haven't seen any of that cr at p here, have you? >No, and thank you very much! I didn't mean to say that there were any >spam/trolls on the list, but that it can be a problem with forums >unless you take steps to make it not a problem. Sorry for any confusion >there. >So, I guess the general consensus is that a forum would not be >preferred to a list format. Just wanted to bring it up in light of the >off-topicness of some of the posts, and the complaints thereof. I >myself wouldn't open a forum as an alternative to this list because: >a) I don't have any hosting space to do so >b) If you throw a party and no-one comes, is it a party? >But, thanks to everyone for voicing an opinion. ok, i'm not nearly as technologically literate as a lot of the people on this list seem to be (i know how to navigate the programs i need to use for work and play and that's about it)and this is the first and only discussion list i've ever been a part of so i'm not very familiar with a lot of the terminology. correct me if i'm wrong (which is entirely possible) but a forum usually requires going to a site and logging on, right? the kind of site that employers (like mine) like to block so you can't access them. if this went to a forum, i wouldn't be able to read the lovely comments that alternately piss me off, make me laugh out loud or think Deep Thoughts. that would be terrible. From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Feb 11 06:43:43 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 06:43:43 -0800 Subject: Dragaeran Geography -- possible Crack, but I hope not In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 22:19:54 -0500, you wrote: >On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, lazarus wrote: > >#On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:18:54 -0500, you wrote: ># >#>"Bryan Newell" writes: >#> >#>> I wonder if "River from Faerie" is the same as "Fairie >#>> River", which I believe is what the Easterns call the >#>> Eastern River (sorry, don't have text in front of me). >#> >#>No. They both start from Lake Fenarr, but flow in opposite >#>directions. >#> ># >#How does the river start in Lake Fenarr, but is called the River >#*From* Faerie, the opposite direction? > > >IIRC, Lake Fenarr is in the mountains that separate the Empire from the >East. Two rivers flow from it. The one that flows through Fenario is >flowing from the direction of the Empire (Faerie), so the name is >natural. Yeah, just looked at the map again. Lake Fenarr lies half in the mountains, half in the Forest. For some reason, I thought the river came from the other side of the lake and continued on through. Strange the tricks the mind can play on one. -- laz I am the Dread Pirate Roberts #23546. Ask me about franchise opportunities! From skzb at dreamcafe.com Tue Feb 10 20:52:02 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (skzb) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 20:52:02 -0800 Subject: Brust weblog entry References: <84F5ABAA-599B-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <046d01c3f05a$ca221520$f900000a@theaddiction2> A Mac. Of course. Silly me. Why didn't I think of that? Someone give Satan a call a find out if he's going to be ice-skating any time soon. > Sounds to me like someone needs a Mac... Not just because I'm a Mac OS > X developer, and therefore biased, but overall I think Macs are great > machines that have the easiest-to-set-up X11 environment. So, if the > rumors I hear are true, and Mr. Brust uses Emacs to write novels, Mac > OS X seems like a natural, stable, well-supported computer platform. > Though, maybe a touch pricey if you want the biggest & best Mac. But > really, for a writer, a $1100 12" sub-notebook might just be usable > enough for what you want. From michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com Tue Feb 10 21:18:18 2004 From: michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com (Michael Angelo Tripp-Russo) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 23:18:18 -0600 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots was Re: Brust weblog entry References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> <04ee01c3f05c$0d3a5510$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: <4029BB1A.9050901@tripp-russo.com> skzb wrote: > > And just to note, I hate, I mean even *Loathe* Windows but can see very > > >>clearly that it is where all the software I want is, except in cases >>where it runs on a Unix/Linux server in which case the x86 hardware >>being cheaper keeps me from ever even considering Macs as a useful >> >> >solution. > > > >I'm in the same boat you are, Ang, though I've lately heard good things >about BSD compared to Linux. But, yeah, telling a frustrated Windows user >that he should switch to Mac is like pointing out to a smoker that tobacco >is dangerous and he should switch to crack. > > > That was the best Goddamned laugh I've had all day. Thank you so very much. - Angelo From skzb at dreamcafe.com Tue Feb 10 21:01:04 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (skzb) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 21:01:04 -0800 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots was Re: Brust weblog entry References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> Message-ID: <04ee01c3f05c$0d3a5510$f900000a@theaddiction2> > And just to note, I hate, I mean even *Loathe* Windows but can see very > clearly that it is where all the software I want is, except in cases > where it runs on a Unix/Linux server in which case the x86 hardware > being cheaper keeps me from ever even considering Macs as a useful solution. > I'm in the same boat you are, Ang, though I've lately heard good things about BSD compared to Linux. But, yeah, telling a frustrated Windows user that he should switch to Mac is like pointing out to a smoker that tobacco is dangerous and he should switch to crack. From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Wed Feb 11 16:04:28 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 16:04:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: AZ: Hungarian-ish Restaurant In-Reply-To: <20040210205333.GA7536@bofh.com> Message-ID: <20040212000428.63724.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jot Powers wrote: > Seen in the AZ Republic last week. Blockquote follows: > > Peter Vamos ran one of the Valley's best ethnic > restaurants, Peter's Budapest Cafe. Alas, the Valley > masses never developed a fever for Hungarian cuisine. > [...] > Peter's Cafe Europe offers could sour-cherry soup ($5.50), > stuffed cabage ($13.95), chicken paprikas ($13.95); > palacsinta (Hungarian crepes, $1295) Wiener schnitzel > ($16.95)' and Transylvanian goulash ($13.95) [snip dobos torte] > I _never_ read this section of the paper. Sometimes you just get lucky. > :) This reminds me that Steven once interfered with my enjoyment of a dinner in a Hungarian restaurant. I kept thinking about how Vlad would describe the dishes. (The food wasn't that great, though, to my taste. I don't know much about Hungarian cooking, but I know what I like.) Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From brian.vanskyock at zimmer.com Wed Feb 11 07:31:20 2004 From: brian.vanskyock at zimmer.com (Brian Vanskyock) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 10:31:20 -0500 Subject: domesticated animals References: Message-ID: <402A4AC8.DEF2F965@zimmer.com> Plaguemines Parish ??!? I am not sure that I would want to live near a plaguemine. Philip Hart wrote: > Are poodle furcuts functional? http://slate.msn.com/id/2095247/ > > Also... > > Feb. 10, 2004 | PORT SULPHUR, La. (AP) -- A woman who had raised her pet > leopard from a cub was mauled by the animal, but survived after a deputy > shot the 100-pound cat as its jaws were clamped on its owner's head, > authorities said. > > Julie Miles, 33, of Port Sulphur, was in fair condition Tuesday at West > Jefferson Medical Center in Gretna, spokeswoman Benola Cooper said. > > The leopard, named Jovani, let Miles go Monday after a Plaquemines Parish > sheriff's deputy shot it twice, sheriff's spokesman Maj. Charles Guey > said. > > The deputy shot the cat a third time after it crouched to attack again, > but the animal was not killed until Miles' brother-in-law, Jimmy Saunier, > arrived and killed it with a shotgun blast, Guey said. > > Miles had been petting Jovani on Monday and was just about to leave when > the cat "got hold of her," her mother, Shirley Alesich, told The (New > Orleans) Times-Picayune. > > The family said Jovani had always been gentle in the past and that Miles > had all the permits she needed for the animal. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 11 21:49:16 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 21:49:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <046d01c3f05a$ca221520$f900000a@theaddiction2> References: <84F5ABAA-599B-11D8-94F6-000393D1260C@mac.com> <046d01c3f05a$ca221520$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, skzb wrote: > A Mac. Of course. Silly me. Why didn't I think of that? Someone give > Satan a call a find out if he's going to be ice-skating any time soon. Title of a poem I've been meaning to write: Skating Towards Ugolino http://danteworlds.lamc.utexas.edu/gallery/1217.jpg > > > > > Sounds to me like someone needs a Mac... Not just because I'm a Mac OS > > X developer, and therefore biased, but overall I think Macs are great > > machines that have the easiest-to-set-up X11 environment. So, if the > > rumors I hear are true, and Mr. Brust uses Emacs to write novels, Mac > > OS X seems like a natural, stable, well-supported computer platform. > > Though, maybe a touch pricey if you want the biggest & best Mac. But > > really, for a writer, a $1100 12" sub-notebook might just be usable > > enough for what you want. > > > From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 11 22:15:45 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 22:15:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: more Orca style than Jhereg In-Reply-To: <402A4AC8.DEF2F965@zimmer.com> References: <402A4AC8.DEF2F965@zimmer.com> Message-ID: Hundreds of Iraqi professionals assassinated since May: http://www.iht.com/articles/128669.html From mtiller at ntlworld.com Wed Feb 11 16:49:52 2004 From: mtiller at ntlworld.com (Mark Tiller) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 00:49:52 -0000 Subject: Let's move to something productive In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040212004818.GRS26804.mta08-svc.ntlworld.com@sweetdre123rzw> -----Original Message----- From: Edward Hahn [mailto:ehahn at isochronism.com] Sent: 11 February 2004 02:06 To: Dragaera List Subject: Re: Let's move to something productive >On 10 Feb 2004, at 8:21 PM, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: >> I think that Washington is ALREADY a great sea of chaos. >> >Maybe so, but they have the *best* burger place in the world (Five >Guys). So tell me, did you check out ever other burger place in the world?....a representantive sample....any outside America? Hmmm? Mark From ehahn at isochronism.com Thu Feb 12 04:56:30 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 07:56:30 -0500 (EST) Subject: Let's move to something productive In-Reply-To: <20040212004818.GRS26804.mta08-svc.ntlworld.com@sweetdre123rzw> References: <20040212004818.GRS26804.mta08-svc.ntlworld.com@sweetdre123rzw> Message-ID: <38880.192.80.55.74.1076590590.squirrel@webmail.pair.com> Mark Tiller said: > So tell me, did you check out ever other burger place in the world?....a > representantive sample....any outside America? Hmmm? Hey, if MLB doesn't need to, then why do I? :-) ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Thu Feb 12 05:08:14 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 08:08:14 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots was Re: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <04ee01c3f05c$0d3a5510$f900000a@theaddiction2> References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> <04ee01c3f05c$0d3a5510$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: <8411EFDE-5D5C-11D8-A689-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 11, 2004, at 12:01 AM, skzb wrote: >> And just to note, I hate, I mean even *Loathe* Windows but can see >> very >> clearly that it is where all the software I want is, except in cases >> where it runs on a Unix/Linux server in which case the x86 hardware >> being cheaper keeps me from ever even considering Macs as a useful > solution. >> > > I'm in the same boat you are, Ang, though I've lately heard good things > about BSD compared to Linux. But, yeah, telling a frustrated Windows > user > that he should switch to Mac is like pointing out to a smoker that > tobacco > is dangerous and he should switch to crack. Oh! OW! The wound, it burns... Must have solace... where is my pipe? Worth every penny (yeah, bit my Mac and me), -Noam (Bottom posting on mail.app, cranking out analyses on IDL for OSX, and listening to iTunes right now - and I'm not even a multitasker) Alpha Men Earn Big Zero (Noam Raphael Izenberg does not like Alpha Men) From lister at insaneninjahero.com Thu Feb 12 08:02:34 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 08:02:34 -0800 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots was Re: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <04ee01c3f05c$0d3a5510$f900000a@theaddiction2> References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> <04ee01c3f05c$0d3a5510$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: <402BA39A.1030505@insaneninjahero.com> skzb wrote: > > And just to note, I hate, I mean even *Loathe* Windows but can see very > >>clearly that it is where all the software I want is, except in cases >>where it runs on a Unix/Linux server in which case the x86 hardware >>being cheaper keeps me from ever even considering Macs as a useful > > solution. > > > I'm in the same boat you are, Ang, though I've lately heard good things > about BSD compared to Linux. But, yeah, telling a frustrated Windows user > that he should switch to Mac is like pointing out to a smoker that tobacco > is dangerous and he should switch to crack. > > > I haven't used an Apple computer since IIc, so maybe I'm not the best judge ... but you do know that OS X is written on a FreeBSD based kernel, right? My brother in law (http://www.daemonnews.org, http://www.bsdmall.com) insists that all things BSD are inherently superior to anything else. Any major manufacturer that is willing to say to the open source community that "we were wrong, and we're going to do it your way now" gets some free points from me. (again, parrotting Chris' words... I don't know diddley about OS X). Oh wait, I lied. There was that period during the 1994-5 school year when I would use the telnet program on the Macs to MUD if the X terminals were all in use. The only thing I know about Linux vs. BSD is that my brother in law likes BSD, a lot of the people he knows are convinced that the GPL is almost as bad as M$ says, and every Linux proponent I've ever spoken to says that is patently crap. That, and I like BSD better because if I have a serious problem, my brother in law knows a bunch of devs and can speak their language, so a solution is generally forthcoming. Derrill From casey at the-bat.net Thu Feb 12 08:42:20 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 11:42:20 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots was Re: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <402BA39A.1030505@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: Derrill wrote: > ... That, and I like BSD better because if I have a serious > problem, my brother in law knows a bunch of devs and can > speak their language, so a solution is generally forthcoming. Seems to me that if you need to know someone who speaks the language in order to successfully use an OS, there's a direct relationship between the objective usefulness of a platform and the availabilty of "translators" amongst your friends and family. Better to have readily available and accessible reference materials. Then again, the barrier is just transferred to knowing how to effectively mine the reference materials. This has always been a talent of mine, so I tend to discount the difficulty. People tell me they have difficulty with TechNet and MSDN. Personally I find them wonderfully rich sources of information and much easier to navigate than other vendor sites I use on a regular basis. Of course, I know next to nothing about Linux or BSD. I do have a book or two and would have a glimmer of an idea as to where to start looking, but I'd probably be starting with Google on almost every question. Casey From davids at kithrup.com Thu Feb 12 09:21:41 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 09:21:41 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots was Re: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: >Of course, I know next to nothing about Linux or BSD. I do have a book >or two and would have a glimmer of an idea as to where to start looking, >but I'd probably be starting with Google on almost every question. > Your first hit would probably be this one: The Linux Documentation Project http://www.tldp.org/ From gomi at speakeasy.net Thu Feb 12 09:34:51 2004 From: gomi at speakeasy.net (Gomi no Sensei) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 09:34:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots was Re: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > Your first hit would probably be this one: > The Linux Documentation Project > http://www.tldp.org/ ...and much fortune may you have with it. the LDP suffers many of the same vices as Linux itself, chief among them an overweening sense of its own importance and the feeling that the worth of a thing is accurately measured by its difficulty. Sorry, my wife and I put in some LDP time, and yeesh. Thanks for opening up old wounds there. pe From matthew at infodancer.org Thu Feb 12 11:49:04 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 13:49:04 -0600 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots was Re: Brust weblog entry In-Reply-To: <402BA39A.1030505@insaneninjahero.com> References: <87A7C6D6-59BC-11D8-84FC-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <402574DC.7080005@tripp-russo.com> <04ee01c3f05c$0d3a5510$f900000a@theaddiction2> <402BA39A.1030505@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: <20040212194904.GA24412@infodancer.org> On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 08:02:34AM -0800, Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert wrote: > I haven't used an Apple computer since IIc, so maybe I'm not the best > judge ... but you do know that OS X is written on a FreeBSD based > kernel, right? My brother in law (http://www.daemonnews.org, > http://www.bsdmall.com) insists that all things BSD are inherently > superior to anything else. Any major manufacturer that is willing to say > to the open source community that "we were wrong, and we're going to do > it your way now" gets some free points from me. (again, parrotting > Chris' words... I don't know diddley about OS X). > > The only thing I know about Linux vs. BSD is that my brother in law > likes BSD, a lot of the people he knows are convinced that the GPL is > almost as bad as M$ says, and every Linux proponent I've ever spoken to > says that is patently crap. It's true that Apple gets some points for adopting a UNIX-based model, but it's also worth noting that they picked BSD because of the license, not because BSD is necessarily better or worse than Linux. The GPL would have prevented Apple from taking the Linux kernel, modifying it, and selling the result as their own work (perhaps with a line or two of credit). Whether that idea bothers you or not is a good proxy for BSD users vs Linux users. As for "inherently superior"... they are, after all, trying to sell you something, even if that something is their free operating system. It's a matter of opinion, and there are advantages and disadvantages either way. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From ehahn at isochronism.com Thu Feb 12 17:19:03 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 20:19:03 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots Message-ID: <9C77FE28-5DC2-11D8-9510-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> On 12 Feb 2004, at 2:49 PM, Matthew Hunter wrote: > It's true that Apple gets some points for adopting a UNIX-based > model, but it's also worth noting that they picked BSD because of > the license, not because BSD is necessarily better or worse than > Linux. The GPL would have prevented Apple from taking the Linux > kernel, modifying it, and selling the result as their own work > (perhaps with a line or two of credit). Ah, but you are aware of the Apple open source contributions to Darwin, KHTML, Konqueror, etc? For the part of OS X that is BSD, they have returned the improvements to the open source community. > As for "inherently superior"... they are, after all, trying to > sell you something, even if that something is their free > operating system. It's a matter of opinion, and there are > advantages and disadvantages either way. Here, we definitely agree. ed PS. List moderator - can we have a "reply-to" field added to the list message headers, with the Dragaera.info address in it? -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From davids at kithrup.com Thu Feb 12 17:55:17 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 17:55:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: warning to newbies In-Reply-To: <20040211195746.GA6643@infodancer.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Feb 2004, Matthew Hunter wrote: >On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 05:21:07PM -0600, Johne Cook > wrote: >> It's true, and it' s obnoxious. We top-post because any other way >> is in direct conflict with the e-mail app. I tried looking >> around in my Outlook program at work (no, I didn't have a choice, >> there), and it appears to be geared toward top-posting, too. I'm >> beginning to despair of using my signature anywhere ever again. Tools > Options > E-mail Options > "On replies and forwards", "When replying to a message", change the drop-down list to: "Prefix each line of original message" >Supposedly there is a patch out that fixes the quoting in outlook >express. I don't know about raw outlook. And since I don't use >that patch, I don't know where to find it. I nearly think that this is what you are referring to: http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/ From matthew at infodancer.org Thu Feb 12 19:08:28 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:08:28 -0600 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: <9C77FE28-5DC2-11D8-9510-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> References: <9C77FE28-5DC2-11D8-9510-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> Message-ID: <20040213030828.GC907@infodancer.org> On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 08:19:03PM -0500, Edward Hahn wrote: > On 12 Feb 2004, at 2:49 PM, Matthew Hunter wrote: > >It's true that Apple gets some points for adopting a UNIX-based > >model, but it's also worth noting that they picked BSD because of > >the license, not because BSD is necessarily better or worse than > >Linux. The GPL would have prevented Apple from taking the Linux > >kernel, modifying it, and selling the result as their own work > >(perhaps with a line or two of credit). > Ah, but you are aware of the Apple open source contributions to Darwin, > KHTML, Konqueror, etc? For the part of OS X that is BSD, they have > returned the improvements to the open source community. Somewhat. I don't pay much attention to apple these days. But that's not the point; the point is the licensing: Right about the time Apple was thinking about what sort of drastic action they would need to take in order to make their operating system competitive again, they had spent the past 2 years or so building up a significant secondary market in "clone" PowerPC computers. Those clones were starting to eat their lunch in the hardware department, which should surprise no one. At the time, Be (with their BeBox, and their PowerPC based, Amiga-inspired OS) was looming up in their rearview mirror on the software front. And Apple's OS team was staring at the writing on the wall -- the sign that said "Everything you know about OS design internals is wrong. Start from scratch." And let's not forget CHRP -- the hardware standard that would have made PowerPCs not only OS independent, but put the platform itself several steps ahead of where the x86 platform is today. Apple was between a rock, a hard place, and an oncoming train. Linux at the time was visible in the way the tide is visible as it rolls inwards -- that is, you knew it was there but you couldn't see it moving, at least not until you looked to see where it was the last time you looked. If Apple went with an open-source kernel and driver model that they could not make exclusive, the hardware cloners would have as much right to modify the kernel and OS as Apple did -- after Apple did all the hard porting work. And even if Apple could retain a lead in operating systems over the cloners (who lacked expertise in that area), they had Be to deal with still. And Be had demonstrated that they had the balls -- and the skills -- to write a better OS than Apple could manage, from scratch, that could run on Apple hardware... or on Be's little BeBox, which by virtue of true SMP was a shot across the bow of Apple's OS engineers, who were still shipping "dual processor" Macs that required special application support to utilize the second processor. Worse, Be had an ally in the wings, a hardware-based started with a CHRP platform already built... a platform that used cheap PC parts where possible when Apple machines remained custom and expensive. A platform that would have shipped out the door with up to four PowerPC G4 processors and an OS-agnostic hardware layout... and a stated policy of letting customers pick the OS. Motorola and IBM were also involved in the CHRP standard and Motorola at least was chomping at the bit. They wanted a piece of the clone business, bad. And Apple's balance is red. Blood red. So... Apple picks a GPL'd kernel and follows through on CHRP; PIOS releases their 4-CPU monster and takes the high-end customers. The rest of the cloners consume the low end. Motorola releases their CHRP machines and takes the middle. IBM releases their CHRP thinkpad and takes the laptops. Apple becomes a software company with an outdated OS and little idea where to go next. Be gets access to Apple's source code and steps on the gas. Everybody was converging on this space because Microsoft and Intel owned the PC and the threat had become obvious; if everybody jumped to a new, better-designed and *open* platform all at once, the new platform can compete with the Wintel duopoly. But if that happens, suddenly Apple goes from a comfortable, if ailing, hardware/software monopoly to the token herbivore in a museum's "This is what piranha do" exhibit. So how do they head off disaster? They backstab the cloners, cutting them off, and saving their hardware business with an inspired bit of marketing fluff called the iMac. They backstab Motorola (ever wonder why Motorola stopped being a major player in desktop PowerPCs? I understand Motorola execs are *still* pissed about this) and kick IBM's big toe (I'm not sure IBM even noticed) by dropping the CHRP work that was just a fancy cover page from being done. They keep their hardware closed, making just enough changes on each model to keep Be playing catch up. And they get a loan >from Microsoft to help them through the bad times until they can rewrite their OS around their BSD microkernel (and thus backstabbing Netscape on Microsoft's behalf) ... and since the OS core and drivers are BSD, they can continue to keep "their" platform closed while Be frantically tries to rewrite their OS for the x86. People talk about Microsoft being a monopoly and playing dirty, but Apple has gone hip-deep in blood and entrails too. It's the same thing; it's just that Apple's monopoly is smaller. Maybe I should write this up on the web. Call it something like "Open Source Kamikazi: How Apple could have killed Microsoft, but blinked". It's good to see that Apple is playing nice, now that they have the luxury of being able to do so. But that has nothing to do with why they picked a BSD-licenced OS as their base platform. > PS. List moderator - can we have a "reply-to" field added to the list > message headers, with the Dragaera.info address in it? We've been there. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Thu Feb 12 19:40:02 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 19:40:02 -0800 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040213034002.GA3196@ofb.net> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 05:33:54PM -0600, Bryan Newell wrote: > 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying to both the > user and the mailing list, or just the list? I realize when I only want to List. In my telnet/text-based mailer, mutt, this is easy, even for a list without Reply-To headers. I've told mutt about the address for this list, and can hit a different key and send only to the list. This is distinct from reply or group-reply. Conversely, I have procmail filter my mailing lists into different mailboxes, so duplicates aren't two messages in my inbox, but a message in the listbox and a message in my inbox. Annoying. Separately, on the list/web forum thing: e-mail has been improved for years for the purpose of two-way communication, from protocols to user programs. It is good. Usenet is also fairly good and I don't care either way, though I see no reason to change a list to a newsgroup. The web is a lot younger and mostly meant for one-way communication; web fora are hacks, and while they work they're primitive. Checking many fora is much slower than checking many mailing lists or newsgroups, at least in my setup; each website has to be visited while new list or newsgroup messages are apparent as a whole. And it's easy to save messages of note. What the web is good for is archiving messages; I used to have mailing lists archived with hypermail, which made good threaded indexes. These days I think the mailman list software automatically makes decent archives, and it's my first choice for running a list, not that I've looked at all the software, mostly just majordomo and mailman. As people said, the possibly missing element would be the ability to look in the archives, reply to a message, and have it threaded properly, thereby closing the list/archive loop. At Caltech I worked on an early forum, "HyperForum", and at IU lots of classes use an Oncourse system which is mostly inferior to a mailing list + website, though it seems to automate access control and assignment/grading type stuff. -xx- Damien X-) From rone at ennui.org Thu Feb 12 19:56:10 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 19:56:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: <9C77FE28-5DC2-11D8-9510-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> Message-ID: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> Edward Hahn writes: PS. List moderator - can we have a "reply-to" field added to the list message headers, with the Dragaera.info address in it? No. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From gomi at pollywog.com Thu Feb 12 20:09:07 2004 From: gomi at pollywog.com (Paul Echeverri) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 20:09:07 -0800 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 19:56:10 -0800 (PST), rone wrote: > Edward Hahn writes: > PS. List moderator - can we have a "reply-to" field added to the list > message headers, with the Dragaera.info address in it? > > No. To save time, imagine several replies, in all flavors of snottiness from 'none' to 'quite a lot,' explaining to you how very technologically naive, if not downright silly, you are for even having to ask such a question, as everyone here usually just hand-hacks their .procmailrc to process this kind of reply-to:list automagically. pe From books at bofh.com Thu Feb 12 20:26:32 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 21:26:32 -0700 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: <20040213042631.GA28750@bofh.com> On Thu, Feb 12, 2004 at 08:09:07PM -0800, Paul Echeverri wrote: > On Thu, 12 Feb 2004 19:56:10 -0800 (PST), rone wrote: > > >Edward Hahn writes: > > PS. List moderator - can we have a "reply-to" field added to the list > > message headers, with the Dragaera.info address in it? > > > >No. > > To save time, imagine several replies, in all flavors of snottiness from > 'none' to 'quite a lot,' explaining to you how very technologically naive, > if not downright silly, you are for even having to ask such a question, as > everyone here usually just hand-hacks their .procmailrc to process this > kind of reply-to:list automagically. ObBrust[1]: This is the wrong answer. The correct answer is Yes. Of course _WILL_ we, is an entirely different question. -Jot [1] In the spirit of Steven saying "Yes" to several questions like: "Can you tell us..." Of course, I actually answered the question that was MEANT, which is against the spirit, but I can't help it, I'm an engineer. :) Of course my answer wasn't very useful, so perhaps we're back to [1] :) -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Feb 12 22:48:58 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 22:48:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: more Jhereg real-world news In-Reply-To: <20040213042631.GA28750@bofh.com> References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <20040213042631.GA28750@bofh.com> Message-ID: Killer-for-hire Web site prompts arrest: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/02/12/killer.site.ap/index.html From ehahn at isochronism.com Fri Feb 13 03:55:44 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 06:55:44 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: <8DEE11AE-5E1B-11D8-BC97-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> On 12 Feb 2004, at 11:09 PM, Paul Echeverri wrote: > To save time, imagine several replies, in all flavors of snottiness > from 'none' to 'quite a lot,' explaining to you how very > technologically naive, if not downright silly, you are for even having > to ask such a question, as everyone here usually just hand-hacks their > .procmailrc to process this kind of reply-to:list automagically. Well, I don't have to imagine this at all, it seems. ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From ehahn at isochronism.com Fri Feb 13 04:01:40 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 07:01:40 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: <20040213030828.GC907@infodancer.org> References: <9C77FE28-5DC2-11D8-9510-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> <20040213030828.GC907@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <620F350E-5E1C-11D8-BC97-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> On 12 Feb 2004, at 10:08 PM, Matthew Hunter wrote: > Maybe I should write this up on the web. Call it something like > "Open Source Kamikazi: How Apple could have killed Microsoft, > but blinked". > > It's good to see that Apple is playing nice, now that they have > the luxury of being able to do so. But that has nothing to do > with why they picked a BSD-licenced OS as their base platform. Who ever said that choosing Linux was a requirement for them? I was merely stating that Apple was and is contributing in part to the open source community. A far cry from Microsoft, eh? Also, I find it strange that you think it's somehow morally suspect for a company to pick a strategy that lets it continue to survive. As for the reply-to; fine, I'll shut up now. ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From ehahn at isochronism.com Fri Feb 13 05:24:26 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:24:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Mac & 'PC' Zealots Message-ID: <33287.192.80.55.74.1076678666.squirrel@webmail.pair.com> Steve Simmons said: > Instead, imagine a politer one which simply says that many years of > experience shows that it causes more problems than it solves, and > directs you to a URL that discusses the plusses and minuses. > > > Thank you for the link - it explains the issue well. I've never had the pleasure of being a mailing list administrator, so I was unaware of the issues. My own situation is that I read this mail account from several different locations, using several different mail readers; I don't have control over the configuration of some of these readers. ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 13 05:23:04 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:23:04 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: <620F350E-5E1C-11D8-BC97-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> Message-ID: I feel like putting here in slightly modified form an instapiem that I posted to rec.music.filk a few years ago in similar circumstances. Of course some of it is outdated, but the -- dare I say "kernel"? -- is pertinent: PCs, with verbal sword and axe, Trade blow for blow with angry Macs. The Unix smile upon the fray While on the side Amigas play, And faintly, like a distant bird, Is "Apple II forever!" heard. A pox on both your houses fall; If not on Brust, don't post at all. -- Mark A. Mandel, The Filker With No Nickname http://mark.cracksandshards.com/filk.html Now on the Filker's Bardic Webring! From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Fri Feb 13 05:12:01 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:12:01 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: <8DEE11AE-5E1B-11D8-BC97-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <8DEE11AE-5E1B-11D8-BC97-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> Message-ID: <20040213131201.GC41004@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 06:55:44AM -0500, Edward Hahn wrote: > On 12 Feb 2004, at 11:09 PM, Paul Echeverri wrote: > >To save time, imagine several replies, in all flavors of snottiness > >from 'none' to 'quite a lot,' explaining to you how very > >technologically naive, if not downright silly, you are for even having > >to ask such a question, as everyone here usually just hand-hacks their > >.procmailrc to process this kind of reply-to:list automagically. > > Well, I don't have to imagine this at all, it seems. Instead, imagine a politer one which simply says that many years of experience shows that it causes more problems than it solves, and directs you to a URL that discusses the plusses and minuses. Whoops, you don't have to imagine that either. :-) But I hope this leaves you with a better taste in your mouth than Paul did. Being correct does not condone being rude. For the record, if the average Internet sophisitication of a list is high enough, Reply-To munging can work. But in 17 years of being on mailing lists, I've only seen one where the list stays consistantly at that level. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From pulmon at comcast.net Fri Feb 13 06:29:11 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 09:29:11 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: <8DEE11AE-5E1B-11D8-BC97-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <8DEE11AE-5E1B-11D8-BC97-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> Message-ID: On Feb 13, 2004, at 6:55 AM, Edward Hahn wrote: > On 12 Feb 2004, at 11:09 PM, Paul Echeverri wrote: >> To save time, imagine several replies, in all flavors of snottiness >> from 'none' to 'quite a lot,' explaining to you how very >> technologically naive, if not downright silly, you are for even >> having to ask such a question, as everyone here usually just >> hand-hacks their .procmailrc to process this kind of reply-to:list >> automagically. > > Well, I don't have to imagine this at all, it seems. > > ed > -- > Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com > "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" > > I seem to have wandered into the valley of the compu-wizards. I don't even know what you guys are talking about! From bonham15 at cox.net Fri Feb 13 08:10:12 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:10:12 -0600 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <8DEE11AE-5E1B-11D8-BC97-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> Message-ID: <001401c3f24b$dc763830$13856044@user79dn2jmjai> ----- > > On 12 Feb 2004, at 11:09 PM, Paul Echeverri wrote: > >> To save time, imagine several replies, in all flavors of snottiness > >> from 'none' to 'quite a lot,' explaining to you how very > >> technologically naive, if not downright silly, you are for even > >> having to ask such a question, as everyone here usually just > >> hand-hacks their .procmailrc to process this kind of reply-to:list > >> automagically. > > > > Well, I don't have to imagine this at all, it seems. > > > > ed > > I seem to have wandered into the valley of the compu-wizards. I don't > even know what you guys are talking about! just nod your head yes and try not to let your eyes glaze over,while wondering how much fun paarfi would have writing about this several hundred years after the fact andy From feaelin at kemenel.org Fri Feb 13 08:21:10 2004 From: feaelin at kemenel.org (Iain E. Davis) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:21:10 -0600 Subject: more Jhereg real-world news In-Reply-To: References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <20040213042631.GA28750@bofh.com> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040213102016.01b22250@kemenel.org> At 12:48 AM 2/13/2004, Philip Hart wrote: >Killer-for-hire Web site prompts arrest: > >http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/02/12/killer.site.ap/index.html He opened the site to repay a $1724 loan? *boggle* From warlord at dragon.com Fri Feb 13 08:43:49 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 11:43:49 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <6.0.1.1.0.20040213102016.01b22250@kemenel.org> Message-ID: What IS the average airspeed velocity of an unladen jhereg? I very nearly ask just to derail the technologists' (I mean "humans") thread. W A)bort R)etry I)nfluence with a great weapon From umbraenoctis at hotmail.com Fri Feb 13 10:02:54 2004 From: umbraenoctis at hotmail.com (James Griffin) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:02:54 -0800 Subject: Question for THE Steven Message-ID: >From: "Warlord" >To: >Subject: Question for THE Steven >Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 11:43:49 -0500 > > >What IS the average airspeed velocity of an unladen jhereg? > I nearly think I must do myself the honor to request further clarification: to wit, English or African-er normal (small) or giant Jhereg? James Griffin, Still Another Vlad faN >I very nearly ask just to derail the technologists' >(I mean "humans") thread. > >W > >A)bort R)etry I)nfluence with a great weapon _________________________________________________________________ Check out the great features of the new MSN 9 Dial-up, with the MSN Dial-up Accelerator. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200361ave/direct/01/ From bonham15 at cox.net Fri Feb 13 10:22:51 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 12:22:51 -0600 Subject: Question for THE Steven References: Message-ID: <000801c3f25e$642e7640$13856044@user79dn2jmjai> > > > >What IS the average airspeed velocity of an unladen jhereg? > > > > I nearly think I must do myself the honor to request further clarification: > to wit, English or African-er normal (small) or giant Jhereg? > > > James Griffin, Still Another Vlad faN > > > >I very nearly ask just to derail the technologists' > >(I mean "humans") thread. > > the temerity! how dare you attempt to derail the pc/mac/linux/blah/blah/blah holy war! for this insult, we are sending Mario after your hard drive -_^ andy From warlord at dragon.com Fri Feb 13 10:49:11 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 13:49:11 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <000801c3f25e$642e7640$13856044@user79dn2jmjai> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: bonham15 [mailto:bonham15 at cox.net] > Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 1:23 PM > > > > >What IS the average airspeed velocity of an unladen jhereg? > > > > > > > I nearly think I must do myself the honor to request further > clarification: > > to wit, English or African-er normal (small) or giant Jhereg? > > > > > > James Griffin, Still Another Vlad faN > > > > > > >I very nearly ask just to derail the technologists' > > >(I mean "humans") thread. > > > > the temerity! how dare you attempt to derail the > pc/mac/linux/blah/blah/blah > holy war! for this insult, we are sending Mario after your hard drive -_^ > > andy > The original spamassassin. :) W "On a clear disk, you can seek forever." From bio_phy at hotmail.com Fri Feb 13 11:10:18 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 13:10:18 -0600 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots Message-ID: >From: Steve Simmons >For the record, if the average Internet sophisitication of a list is >high enough, Reply-To munging can work. But in 17 years of being on >mailing lists, I've only seen one where the list stays consistantly >at that level. So what are you saying? That this one is borderline? ;) _________________________________________________________________ Optimize your Internet experience to the max with the new MSN Premium Internet Software. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200359ave/direct/01/ From scs at di.org Fri Feb 13 11:48:44 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 14:48:44 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040213194844.GC41664@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 01:10:18PM -0600, Johne Cook wrote: > From: Steve Simmons > > For the record, if the average Internet sophisitication of a list is > > high enough, Reply-To munging can work. But in 17 years of being on > > mailing lists, I've only seen one where the list stays consistantly > > at that level. > So what are you saying? That this one is borderline? ;) Compare to the folks on the General Technics/Permanant Floating Riot Club list? Absolutely. :-) -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From jda3 at njit.edu Fri Feb 13 11:49:33 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 14:49:33 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0HT1008C3G8C72@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > >What IS the average airspeed velocity of an unladen jhereg? > > > > I nearly think I must do myself the honor to request further > clarification: > to wit, English or African-er normal (small) or giant Jhereg? I think any good Frenchman over the balcony of a keep would assure you that nothing can be faster then the average airspeed of an African Jhereg... From warbi at warbi.net Fri Feb 13 13:53:45 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 13:53:45 -0800 Subject: Question for THE Steven References: <0HT1008C3G8C72@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <015f01c3f27b$dbec46e0$3dadfea9@warbi> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod" To: Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 11:49 AM Subject: RE: Question for THE Steven > > >What IS the average airspeed velocity of an unladen jhereg? > > > > > > > I nearly think I must do myself the honor to request further > > clarification: > > to wit, English or African-er normal (small) or giant Jhereg? > > I think any good Frenchman over the balcony of a keep would assure you that > nothing can be faster then the average airspeed of an African Jhereg... That's okay, he had already been flung into the Abyss when he asked if it was an English or African one. warbi From casey at the-bat.net Fri Feb 13 12:19:02 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 15:19:02 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <015f01c3f27b$dbec46e0$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: warbi wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod" [snip] > > > > I think any good Frenchman over the balcony of a keep would > > assure you that nothing can be faster then the average > > airspeed of an African Jhereg... > > > That's okay, he had already been flung into the Abyss when > he asked if it was an English or African one. warbi Non, non, mes amis. Only nasty druids and Englishmen get thrown into Abysses. Good Frenchmen do unmentionable things in the general direction of such persons. :) M. Rousseau From jda3 at njit.edu Fri Feb 13 12:14:57 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 15:14:57 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <015f01c3f27b$dbec46e0$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: <0HT100LJRHEUYH@mta1.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > > > >What IS the average airspeed velocity of an unladen jhereg? > > > > > > > > > > I nearly think I must do myself the honor to request further > > > clarification: > > > to wit, English or African-er normal (small) or giant Jhereg? > > > > I think any good Frenchman over the balcony of a keep would assure you > that > > nothing can be faster then the average airspeed of an African Jhereg... > > > That's okay, he had already been flung into the Abyss when he asked if > it > was an English or African one. warbi Then perhaps Blue was his favorite color? From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Fri Feb 13 12:09:52 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 12:09:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040213200952.55745.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> --- James Griffin wrote: ... > James Griffin, Still Another Vlad faN ... Which brings up an on-topic but unanswerable question: Is Savn still a Vlad fan? I was very disappointed not to see the scene where Savn went home. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From casey at the-bat.net Fri Feb 13 12:26:05 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 15:26:05 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Warlord wrote: > > What IS the average airspeed velocity of an unladen jhereg? Hmm. There are a couple occasions when Vlad sends Loiosh out on some scouting mission. We should have some textev for this. > I very nearly ask just to derail the technologists' > (I mean "humans") thread. Oh, but derailing a thread is nigh to impossible. > A)bort R)etry I)nfluence with a great weapon :) Now that's a fun .sig. From rone at ennui.org Fri Feb 13 12:30:19 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 12:30:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040213200952.55745.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040213203019.5E0EB26C64@boredom.ennui.org> Jerry Friedman writes: Which brings up an on-topic but unanswerable question: Is Savn still a Vlad fan? I was very disappointed not to see the scene where Savn went home. I live in the hope that Steve is saving that scene for a forthcoming book. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From feaelin at kemenel.org Fri Feb 13 12:46:49 2004 From: feaelin at kemenel.org (Iain E. Davis) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 14:46:49 -0600 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040213203019.5E0EB26C64@boredom.ennui.org> References: <20040213200952.55745.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> <20040213203019.5E0EB26C64@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040213144549.01b0da98@kemenel.org> At 02:30 PM 2/13/2004, rone wrote: >I live in the hope that Steve is saving that scene for a forthcoming >book. Perhaps as a flashback after Savn's return to the limelight? It might be cool if the experience made a "tougher" Savn, who turns up to kick butt at a later time. :) From bryann at bryann.net Fri Feb 13 15:59:30 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 17:59:30 -0600 Subject: What is an iorich? Message-ID: Book of Jhereg, pg 58 - Lady Teldra was tall, beautiful, and graceful as a dzur. Her eyes were as soft as an iorich's wing, and her walk was smooth, flowing, and delicate as a court dancer's. She held herself with the relaxed, confident poise of, well, of an issola. Dzurlord, Brust's Introduction, quoted from http://www.mojoworld.net/sil/treats/dzurlordintro.html - The iorich is a large, slow-moving, river dwelling reptile. A "large, slow-moving, river dwelling reptile" with "soft" wings? Perhaps Dzurlord is not canon; I don't remember any other iorich text references... Bryan From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Feb 13 16:29:10 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:29:10 -0800 Subject: What is an iorich? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 17:59:30 -0600, you wrote: >Book of Jhereg, pg 58 - > Lady Teldra was tall, beautiful, and graceful as a dzur. Her eyes were as >soft as an iorich's wing, and her walk was smooth, flowing, and delicate as >a court dancer's. She held herself with the relaxed, confident poise of, >well, of an issola. > >Dzurlord, Brust's Introduction, quoted from >http://www.mojoworld.net/sil/treats/dzurlordintro.html - > The iorich is a large, slow-moving, river dwelling reptile. > >A "large, slow-moving, river dwelling reptile" with "soft" wings? > >Perhaps Dzurlord is not canon; I don't remember any other iorich text >references... > >Bryan > IIRC, Dzurlord is considered wildly not canon. From bryann at bryann.net Fri Feb 13 16:56:39 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 18:56:39 -0600 Subject: What is an iorich? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >A "large, slow-moving, river dwelling reptile" with "soft" wings? > > > >Perhaps Dzurlord is not canon; I don't remember any other iorich text > >references... > > > >Bryan > > > IIRC, Dzurlord is considered wildly not canon. > > That's okay, I found another one: Book of Jhereg, pg 123 - a teckla's squawk Dzurlord - The teckla is a salt marsh harvest mouse So I'm betting a Teckla is the Dragaeran equivalent of a chicken? Or some other type of squawking bird? Has anyone made an attempt to compile a list of just what all the house animals are? I've been using the descriptions in Dzurlord, but if they're not right.... Bryan From davids at kithrup.com Fri Feb 13 17:03:27 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 17:03:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: What is an iorich? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: >Book of Jhereg, pg 58 - > Lady Teldra was tall, beautiful, and graceful as a dzur. Her eyes > were as soft as an iorich's wing, and her walk was smooth, > flowing, and delicate as a court dancer's. She held herself with > the relaxed, confident poise of, well, of an issola. > >Dzurlord, Brust's Introduction, quoted from >http://www.mojoworld.net/sil/treats/dzurlordintro.html - > The iorich is a large, slow-moving, river dwelling reptile. > >A "large, slow-moving, river dwelling reptile" with "soft" wings? One of the things noted by Mario^H^Hk was that in /The Phoenix Guards/ there is some small confusion on the part of, well, *somebody* - Paarfi or Steve or both - between "Iorich" and "Issola". http://www.speakeasy.org/~mamandel/Cracks-and-Shards/misc-cracks.html#Prison Since issolas do indeed have wings, perhaps it happened again here? Who can say? Alternatively, consider that perhaps ioriches are indeed also winged. It would be amusing to consider that they might bear a certain superficial resemblance to jhereg... >Perhaps Dzurlord is not canon; I don't remember any other iorich text >references... > Booksearch has only 25 hits on iorich; all other refs besides the one you note are to the House rather than the animal. But booksearch is incomplete. Ah, well. From davids at kithrup.com Fri Feb 13 17:15:16 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 17:15:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: What is an iorich? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: >That's okay, I found another one: > >Book of Jhereg, pg 123 - > a teckla's squawk > >Dzurlord - > The teckla is a salt marsh harvest mouse > >So I'm betting a Teckla is the Dragaeran equivalent of a chicken? Or >some other type of squawking bird? Or "squawk" is a typo for "squeak". You know, the sound a mouse makes. Or perhaps the teckla is a mouse that squawks. No need to bring in chickens just because it makes a certain noise. >Has anyone made an attempt to compile a list of just what all the >house animals are? I've been using the descriptions in Dzurlord, but >if they're not right.... I don't think anyone knows what a Jhegaala looks like. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=388CA700.A2168A83 at yahoo.com Ilona Berry writes: Also, for readers of the Vlad books, anyone have an idea of what a jhegaala looks like (the animal)? [...] You would think that having the author's input would be enough, but alas, its not. However, Kathy Grantham's depictions appear to match the text in Dzurlord, although they are obviously not the full cycle. From gomi at pollywog.com Sat Feb 14 09:09:44 2004 From: gomi at pollywog.com (Paul Echeverri) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 09:09:44 -0800 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040213192328.02cf0a00@pop.east.cox.net> References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <6.0.0.22.2.20040213192328.02cf0a00@pop.east.cox.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 19:24:02 -0500, Peter H. Granzeau wrote: > Please explain. I don't understand what this means. I use Eudora. Ah. For some reason, preserving the 'functionality' of reply-to:all, so that one gets duplicates of all messages (since reply-to:all sends to both the list and the individual), is considered the Correct Way. It's really best not to worry about it, grit your teeth, and hand-write the headers every single freaking time you reply, so as to make it behave properly. pe From mklahn at mac.com Sat Feb 14 09:28:23 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 11:28:23 -0600 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <6.0.1.1.0.20040213144549.01b0da98@kemenel.org> References: <20040213200952.55745.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> <20040213203019.5E0EB26C64@boredom.ennui.org> <6.0.1.1.0.20040213144549.01b0da98@kemenel.org> Message-ID: <31063A37-5F13-11D8-A718-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Feb 13, 2004, at 14:46 , Iain E. Davis wrote: > At 02:30 PM 2/13/2004, rone wrote: >> I live in the hope that Steve is saving that scene for a forthcoming >> book. > > Perhaps as a flashback after Savn's return to the limelight? It might > be cool if the experience made a "tougher" Savn, who turns up to kick > butt at a later time. :) Actually the thought of Savn "kicking butt" makes me sad. Savn was always a character that I thought deserved a happier time than he ended up with, and to have him have to be violent again would be tragic, IMO. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From feaelin at kemenel.org Sat Feb 14 09:57:36 2004 From: feaelin at kemenel.org (Iain E. Davis) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 11:57:36 -0600 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <31063A37-5F13-11D8-A718-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <20040213200952.55745.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> <20040213203019.5E0EB26C64@boredom.ennui.org> <6.0.1.1.0.20040213144549.01b0da98@kemenel.org> <31063A37-5F13-11D8-A718-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040214115420.01b0dfe0@kemenel.org> At 11:28 AM 2/14/2004, you wrote: >On Feb 13, 2004, at 14:46 , Iain E. Davis wrote: > >>At 02:30 PM 2/13/2004, rone wrote: >>>I live in the hope that Steve is saving that scene for a forthcoming >>>book. >> >>Perhaps as a flashback after Savn's return to the limelight? It might be >>cool if the experience made a "tougher" Savn, who turns up to kick butt >>at a later time. :) > >Actually the thought of Savn "kicking butt" makes me sad. Savn was always >a character that I thought deserved a happier time than he ended up with, >and to have him have to be violent again would be tragic, IMO. Possibly true. I guess I just want to see (more) evidence that the "Teckla timidity" is culturally imposed, rather than an "guaranteed by magic or genetics" thing. Iain From dd-b at dd-b.net Sat Feb 14 14:18:47 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 16:18:47 -0600 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: (Paul Echeverri's message of "Sat, 14 Feb 2004 09:09:44 -0800") References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <6.0.0.22.2.20040213192328.02cf0a00@pop.east.cox.net> Message-ID: Paul Echeverri writes: > On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 19:24:02 -0500, Peter H. Granzeau > wrote: > >> Please explain. I don't understand what this means. I use Eudora. > > Ah. > > For some reason, preserving the 'functionality' of reply-to:all, so > that one gets duplicates of all messages (since reply-to:all sends to > both the list and the individual), is considered the Correct Way. It's > really best not to worry about it, grit your teeth, and hand-write the > headers every single freaking time you reply, so as to make it behave > properly. Or use a mail program that supports the RFC 2369 header fields for mailing list commands, or one that supports "reply to recipient", or one which can be configured per-list for what reply defaults to locally (so at least you only have to do it once). With this many alternatives already available, it seems excessive to throw away the ability to reply to the sender (which is what putting in a reply-to to the list does for most programs). Oh, and there's no need to hand-write the headers, just *delete* the entry for the original sender (much quicker and eaiser than entering the list address by hand). -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From feaelin at kemenel.org Sat Feb 14 14:27:08 2004 From: feaelin at kemenel.org (Iain E. Davis) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 16:27:08 -0600 Subject: E-Mail Clients (was: Mac & "PC" Zealots) In-Reply-To: References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <6.0.0.22.2.20040213192328.02cf0a00@pop.east.cox.net> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040214162516.01b087c0@kemenel.org> At 04:18 PM 2/14/2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >Paul Echeverri writes: > > > On Fri, 13 Feb 2004 19:24:02 -0500, Peter H. Granzeau > > wrote: > > > >> Please explain. I don't understand what this means. I use Eudora. > > > > Ah. > > > > For some reason, preserving the 'functionality' of reply-to:all, so > > that one gets duplicates of all messages (since reply-to:all sends to > > both the list and the individual), is considered the Correct Way. It's > > really best not to worry about it, grit your teeth, and hand-write the > > headers every single freaking time you reply, so as to make it behave > > properly. > >Or use a mail program that supports the RFC 2369 header fields for >mailing list commands, or one that supports "reply to recipient", or Do you know of a website that compares various e-mail programs and features? Particularly whether the client supports "this RFC" and "that RFC" ? Such a site would be helpful in selecting a e-mail client. From dd-b at dd-b.net Sat Feb 14 15:49:28 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 17:49:28 -0600 Subject: E-Mail Clients In-Reply-To: <6.0.1.1.0.20040214162516.01b087c0@kemenel.org> (Iain E. Davis's message of "Sat, 14 Feb 2004 16:27:08 -0600") References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <6.0.0.22.2.20040213192328.02cf0a00@pop.east.cox.net> <6.0.1.1.0.20040214162516.01b087c0@kemenel.org> Message-ID: "Iain E. Davis" writes: > Do you know of a website that compares various e-mail programs and > features? Particularly whether the client supports "this RFC" and > "that RFC" ? Such a site would be helpful in selecting a e-mail client. I'm afraid I don't. It would indeed be very handy. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From stikjok at hotmail.com Sat Feb 14 21:46:41 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 05:46:41 +0000 Subject: Greetings! Message-ID: I've been a fan of Mr. Brust since about '86, I felt it was time to connect with others. Please be gentle. Dave _________________________________________________________________ Click here for a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From jda3 at njit.edu Sat Feb 14 22:05:15 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 01:05:15 -0500 Subject: Greetings! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0HT400IY83D2FB@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > I've been a fan of Mr. Brust since about '86, I felt it was time to > connect > with others. Please be gentle. Though I have only been here for a week... I can tell you that the people here are as evil as a dragon and stubborn as a dzur... From bio_phy at hotmail.com Sat Feb 14 22:10:16 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 00:10:16 -0600 Subject: Greetings! Message-ID: >From: "Dave Cooper" >I've been a fan of Mr. Brust since about '86, I felt it was time to connect >with others. Please be gentle. > >Dave Look! It's Mario (whom Johnny Depp is scheduled to play in the fiilm version). (Hey, Dave, and welcome.) johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa _________________________________________________________________ Choose now from 4 levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage - no more account overload! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/ From umbraenoctis at hotmail.com Sat Feb 14 22:43:03 2004 From: umbraenoctis at hotmail.com (James Griffin) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2004 22:43:03 -0800 Subject: Greetings! Message-ID: >From: "Johne Cook" >To: stikjok at hotmail.com, dragaera at dragaera.info >Subject: RE: Greetings! >Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 00:10:16 -0600 > >>From: "Dave Cooper" >>I've been a fan of Mr. Brust since about '86, I felt it was time to >>connect with others. Please be gentle. >> >>Dave > > >Look! It's Mario (whom Johnny Depp is scheduled to play in the fiilm >version). (Hey, Dave, and welcome.) > Actually, that would be Devera. James Griffin, Still Another Vlad faN >johne (phy) cook >wisconsin, usa > >_________________________________________________________________ >Choose now from 4 levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage - no more account >overload! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/ > _________________________________________________________________ Get some great ideas here for your sweetheart on Valentine's Day - and beyond. http://special.msn.com/network/celebrateromance.armx From stikjok at hotmail.com Sun Feb 15 05:50:59 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 13:50:59 +0000 Subject: It might be true... Message-ID: After all, Depp has proven a lust for short, dangerous girls. Dave _________________________________________________________________ Plan your next US getaway to one of the super destinations here. http://special.msn.com/local/hotdestinations.armx From scs at di.org Sun Feb 15 08:13:35 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 11:13:35 -0500 Subject: E-Mail Clients (was: Mac & "PC" Zealots) In-Reply-To: <6.0.1.1.0.20040214162516.01b087c0@kemenel.org> References: <20040213035610.E50B026C57@boredom.ennui.org> <6.0.0.22.2.20040213192328.02cf0a00@pop.east.cox.net> <6.0.1.1.0.20040214162516.01b087c0@kemenel.org> Message-ID: <20040215161335.GD50426@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Sat, Feb 14, 2004 at 04:27:08PM -0600, Iain E. Davis wrote: > Do you know of a website that compares various e-mail programs and > features? Particularly whether the client supports "this RFC" and "that > RFC" ? Such a site would be helpful in selecting a e-mail client. I went digging for one, and came up empty. This surprises me, because there are all kinds of review sites for this, that, and the other. What we really want is something like the "Good NetKeeping Seal of Approval", a.k.a GNKSA. It was designed for USENET news readers, and for a while was pretty influential. An equivelent for mail user agents would be very useful. No, I already have enough projects on my plate. :-) Brief technodweebing: "Mail user agent" (MUA) is the proper term for a tool you (the user) read and send mail with. This distinguishes it from something that transports mail from place to place, called the Mail Transport Agent (MTA). -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From scs at di.org Sun Feb 15 08:23:51 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 11:23:51 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <31063A37-5F13-11D8-A718-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <20040213200952.55745.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> <20040213203019.5E0EB26C64@boredom.ennui.org> <6.0.1.1.0.20040213144549.01b0da98@kemenel.org> <31063A37-5F13-11D8-A718-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <20040215162351.GE50426@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Sat, Feb 14, 2004 at 11:28:23AM -0600, Matthew Klahn wrote: > Actually the thought of Savn "kicking butt" makes me sad. Savn was > always a character that I thought deserved a happier time than he ended > up with, and to have him have to be violent again would be tragic, IMO. Agreed. Savn has the potential to be the 'everyman' character, the guy who wants a home, a wife, children, and will be both complete and content once he has them. Unfortunately the Dragearan lifespan means that Savn will still be an adolescent long after Vlad's in his grave; it would have been interesting to see the adult homebody Savn as the object of Vlads envy. It occurs to me that the Vlad stories lack any such character. Children and marriages are *very* few and far between. The closest we come is Khaavrens family. Of course, there are other issues that make Khaavrens life a less than a happy one. Hmm... given Dragaeran lifespan, it would not be unreasonable for Khaavren to have more children. Vlad and Khaaven have the potential for mutual respect; he could yet fill such a role in Vlads era. Steve -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 15 09:38:37 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 11:38:37 -0600 Subject: Mailing List Etiquette -- Results In-Reply-To: Message-ID: As of 11:19am CST on 2/15/2004, here are the results of my etiquette questions: > 1. When I reply to a message on this list, should I be replying > to both the user and the mailing list, or just the list? one or the other - 6 responses not that big of a deal - 4 both - 2 I will consider the above a tie, between "one or the other" and "who cares/both". The arguements stated on both sides appeared to boil down to the following: Evil 1: Duplicates are annoying! Evil 2: I don't have time to go through 40 messages, I wonder if anyone responded to my posting? Since I believe too much information is better than too little, I'll post to both, as the lesser of these two evils. Then again, maybe those great folks at the Cthulhu For President site (http://www.cthulhu.org/) have a point... :) > 2. Should I limit my posts to a certain size With one voice, the People spoke: "No!" > 3. What is the proper way to refer to the author we're here for? Thanks to John Klein, who supplied me with answers from Steven Brust himself: http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi?1:mas:59:jmikhcjlblbeaehdleep http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi?1:mas:78:jmikhcjlblbeaehdleep Unfortunately, there appear to be multiple Steves and multiple Brusts who post to this list, but only one "Steven Brust"... I'll use Brust for the most part, and switch to the full name when it appears there might be some confusion. Thanks to everyone who responded. Bryan From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 15 08:07:35 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 10:07:35 -0600 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: Message-ID: So I've been working on my new Brust page, which (for the moment) will be dedicated to two things: 1. My ongoing attempts to create an unauthorized Map of Dragaera. 2. My ongoing attempts to create an unauthorized visual Cycle. I say "unauthorized" because I don't expect to get any help from Brust himself, nor will Brust be bound in any fashion whatsoever by whatever I come up with for future novels (well, the text references are his, but I'm talking about my contributions). Both of these attempts will be made using text references from the Dragaeran novels (except for "Brokedown Palace", which I still haven't read) by Brust as follows: There are basically 6 points of view (POV) in use in the Dragaeran novels that I've read. I will list them below, in order of reliability, in my opinion. If there is an inconsistency, I will accept as "correct" the one >from the lowest number below: 1. Athyra/Introduction to Dzurlord - Both are written from the God POV, so any mistakes are Cracks (Brust messed up) --all the rest are written from the First Person, which I believe is inherently unreliable-- 2. Orca (Kiera's POV) - For SPOILER reasons I won't go into, I trust the tales from her POV very much. 3. Paarfi's POV - He's a historian, therefore I trust he's done his research, regardless of what his contemporary critics think. 4. Vlad's POV, except for Dragon - He's just this guy, but a guy with an eye for detail known for his information network. 5. Orca (Vlad's POV) - It's being relayed by Kiera after the fact from memory (I trust her memory is good, but it's still a 2nd hand account) 6. Dragon - It's being remembered 3 years later, and Vlad himself admits his memory is not so sharp at times. And, of course, all of the above are being "translated" by Brust, so that introduces another non-Crack source of error (Brust has covered himself well). Having said that, what do the rest of you think? I've heard people say the Introduction to Dzurlord is unreliable. Why? Has Brust distanced himself from it? Unless Brust himself says it isn't reliable, I will continue accepting it a "canon" (and, moreover, very reliable, as it's written from the God POV). There is a huge debate, both in Dragaera itself and in our world, on how reliable Paarfi is. My family/friends think Paarfi is the LEAST reliable (should be #6), but regardless of his "problems" as a historian, it doesn't seem likely to me that he would be wrong about the subject matter I'm interested in--Geography and the Cycle. Thank you for your thoughts, Bryan From Gaertk at aol.com Sun Feb 15 10:30:10 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 13:30:10 -0500 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots Message-ID: <6CF0E653.0DCC0D41.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/14/2004 5:18:47 PM Eastern Standard Time, David Dyer-Bennet writes: > Paul Echeverri writes: > >> For some reason, preserving the 'functionality' of >> reply-to:all, so that one gets duplicates of all messages >> (since reply-to:all sends to both the list and the >> individual), is considered the Correct Way. It's >> really best not to worry about it, grit your teeth, and >> hand-write the headers every single freaking time you >> reply, so as to make it behave properly. > > Or use a mail program that supports the RFC 2369 header > fields for mailing list commands, or one that supports > "reply to recipient",?or one which can be configured > per-list for what reply defaults to locally (so at least > you only have to do it once). ?With this many alternatives > already available, it seems excessive to throw away the > ability to reply to the sender (which is what putting in a > reply-to to the list does for most programs). Some of us poor souls are Not Allowed to use third-party mail readers. And it almost sounds as if you're saying everyone has to use a fully standards compliant reader for the sake of people who aren't using one. > Oh, and there's no need to hand-write the headers, just > *delete* the entry for the original sender (much quicker > and eaiser than entering the list address by hand). True, but some people on the list keep putting the list address in the CC: field, so you have to delete and cut and paste. It's not hard, but it's not quite trivial either. I've been on this list since nearly the beginning, and only twice have I ever wanted to send a private response to a list post. The first was explicitly requested, and the second was a query whether the post sent to me was intentionally private or not (it wasn't). David, could you please take a look at www.gmane.org? I honestly think enabling that for this list would make everyone happy. Heck, I suspect I could enable it myself and no one else would even notice. --KG From warlord at dragon.com Sun Feb 15 11:52:30 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 14:52:30 -0500 Subject: Greetings! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Cooper [mailto:stikjok at hotmail.com] > Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 12:47 AM > > > I've been a fan of Mr. Brust since about '86, I felt it was time > to connect > with others. Please be gentle. > Hey, as long as you aren't late with the five gold imperials per week that we need to protect your entries, we're *easy* to get along with. Welcome. :) Warlord "In Sethra we trust, all others pay cash" From pulmon at comcast.net Sun Feb 15 12:36:46 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:36:46 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040215162351.GE50426@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <20040213200952.55745.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> <20040213203019.5E0EB26C64@boredom.ennui.org> <6.0.1.1.0.20040213144549.01b0da98@kemenel.org> <31063A37-5F13-11D8-A718-000393D1260C@mac.com> <20040215162351.GE50426@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Feb 15, 2004, at 11:23 AM, Steve Simmons wrote: > On Sat, Feb 14, 2004 at 11:28:23AM -0600, Matthew Klahn wrote: > >> Actually the thought of Savn "kicking butt" makes me sad. Savn was >> always a character that I thought deserved a happier time than he >> ended >> up with, and to have him have to be violent again would be tragic, >> IMO. > > Agreed. Savn has the potential to be the 'everyman' character, the > guy who wants a home, a wife, children, and will be both complete and > content once he has them. Unfortunately the Dragearan lifespan means > that Savn will still be an adolescent long after Vlad's in his grave; > it would have been interesting to see the adult homebody Savn as the > object of Vlads envy. > > It occurs to me that the Vlad stories lack any such character. > Children > and marriages are *very* few and far between. The closest we come is > Khaavrens family. Of course, there are other issues that make > Khaavrens > life a less than a happy one. Hmm... given Dragaeran lifespan, it > would > not be unreasonable for Khaavren to have more children. Vlad and > Khaaven > have the potential for mutual respect; he could yet fill such a role in > Vlads era. > > Steve > -- > "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when > you're old and cynical." > -me > > Rumor has it that a forthcoming novel in the Vladiad is called Tiassa...hmmmm. Also, remember that witches can live a long time (viz Arra), Great Weapons strive to keep their owners alive, and the relationship between reincarnation of the soul and genetics is...odd. Vlad could be around for a while. The question is, will his chronicler? From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Sun Feb 15 12:48:44 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:48:44 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <402FDB2C.5070208@earthlink.net> Bryan Newell wrote: >3. Paarfi's POV - He's a historian, therefore I trust he's done his >research, regardless of what his contemporary critics think. > >I've heard people say the Introduction to Dzurlord is unreliable. Why? Has >Brust distanced himself from it? Unless Brust himself says it isn't >reliable, I will continue accepting it a "canon" (and, moreover, very >reliable, as it's written from the God POV). > >There is a huge debate, both in Dragaera itself and in our world, on how >reliable Paarfi is. My family/friends think Paarfi is the LEAST reliable >(should be #6), but regardless of his "problems" as a historian, it doesn't >seem likely to me that he would be wrong about the subject matter I'm >interested in--Geography and the Cycle. > > > Dzurlord isn't considered part of the Cycle of novels that Steve has suggested he might end up writing (that is, 17 named after the creatures of the cycle, plus Taltos and The Final Contract). This suggests that there will be a Dzur at some point in the future, and also that Dzurlord isn't meant to be considered quite as canonical as, say, Jhereg. When asked if Dzurlord is canon, he replied: ] Well, not having established the canon, I don't think it's fair for ] me to say. I never said that bits and pieces of Jarhead and Yentil ] were not canonical. ] Myself, I tend to prefer to see artillery used to support infantry ] action, but it really depends on the technology of the field piece ] in question. David Silberstein correctly pointed out that this is "only slightly better than "Tee hee" in terms of its information content." So make of that what you will. I personally have used bits of the Dzurlord intro to support arguments before, but Steve might at some point decide that what's in Dzurlord is unnecessarily restrictive, and thus toss it aside. Who knows? As for Paarfi and his credibility, I think the biggest problem is determining what his agenda is. Despite his claims to be "an historian," the way he's described (by implication, so my line of reasoning can be justifiably ignored due to its pararectal nature) suggests that he's just a historical fiction writer, and a popular one at that. From all the allusions to Paarfi in the Vladiad, it seems that nobody takes him seriously as an authority on history. His style seems to be what makes him most distinctive, as Kiera comments to Vlad "Been reading Paarfi again?" when he makes a grandiloquent offer of being chopped to pieces for her at some point. In any case, if we consider Paarfi as historically unreliable, I think it is likely that he would re-arrange geography a bit if it serves his plot. Maybe he didn't have to, but it's something to keep in mind when considering reliability. Also note that we've never seen maps in Paarfi's works, but we have in Yendi and Brokedown Palace. I don't know if this means anything; maybe Paarfi assumes everyone knows the places he's talking about and therefore doesn't need to include any maps with his manuscripts. At the same time, the amount of effort he puts in descriptions of places seems to belie this assumption... Anyway, these are my non-canonical thoughts. *grin* Jose -- Jose Marquez \ Cthulhu 2004 jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ Why vote for http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ the lesser evil? From dd-b at dd-b.net Sun Feb 15 13:06:40 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:06:40 -0600 Subject: Greetings! In-Reply-To: (Dave Cooper's message of "Sun, 15 Feb 2004 05:46:41 +0000") References: Message-ID: "Dave Cooper" writes: > I've been a fan of Mr. Brust since about '86, I felt it was time to > connect with others. Please be gentle. Welcome! Gentle we mostly aren't. Reasonably polite, yes. But sharp, opinionated, and fairly quick-witted. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Sun Feb 15 13:12:19 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:12:19 -0600 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: (Bryan Newell's message of "Sun, 15 Feb 2004 10:07:35 -0600") References: Message-ID: "Bryan Newell" writes: > So I've been working on my new Brust page, which (for the moment) will be > dedicated to two things: > > 1. My ongoing attempts to create an unauthorized Map of Dragaera. > > 2. My ongoing attempts to create an unauthorized visual Cycle. This sounds like an *excellent* pair of projects. Since you don't give a URL, I assume nothing's up yet? I imagine I'll want to link to it when you get it up. An alternative is that you might be interested in having them published as articles here on dragaera.info. While we *are* an authorized site, we don't claim the articles are cannon. If you're interested in that, email me privately. (In fact, thinking about this, I need some more verbiage about that in the articles section :-)). -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Sun Feb 15 13:35:53 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:35:53 -0600 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: <6CF0E653.0DCC0D41.00048EA6@aol.com> (Gaertk@aol.com's message of "Sun, 15 Feb 2004 13:30:10 -0500") References: <6CF0E653.0DCC0D41.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: Gaertk at aol.com writes: > In a message dated 2/14/2004 5:18:47 PM Eastern Standard > Time, David Dyer-Bennet writes: > >> Paul Echeverri writes: >> >>> For some reason, preserving the 'functionality' of >>> reply-to:all, so that one gets duplicates of all messages >>> (since reply-to:all sends to both the list and the >>> individual), is considered the Correct Way. It's >>> really best not to worry about it, grit your teeth, and >>> hand-write the headers every single freaking time you >>> reply, so as to make it behave properly. >> >> Or use a mail program that supports the RFC 2369 header >> fields for mailing list commands, or one that supports >> "reply to recipient",?or one which can be configured >> per-list for what reply defaults to locally (so at least >> you only have to do it once). ?With this many alternatives >> already available, it seems excessive to throw away the >> ability to reply to the sender (which is what putting in a >> reply-to to the list does for most programs). > > Some of us poor souls are Not Allowed to use third-party > mail readers. And it almost sounds as if you're saying > everyone has to use a fully standards compliant reader for > the sake of people who aren't using one. More the reverse -- I'm not interested in hacking things to support a non-standard workaround for the few people who don't have access to mail user agents that support the several standard solutions to the problem. > I've been on this list since nearly the beginning, and only > twice have I ever wanted to send a private response to a list > post. The first was explicitly requested, and the second was > a query whether the post sent to me was intentionally private > or not (it wasn't). I find myself having to do annoying hackery to send email to posters in munged lists nearly every day, myself. Luckily proper configuration in gnus warns it to ignore all reply-to headers in a list, greatly simplifying the problem. (Only found that fairly recently, so I'm still admiring it.) > David, could you please take a look at www.gmane.org? I > honestly think enabling that for this list would make > everyone happy. Heck, I suspect I could enable it myself > and no one else would even notice. At a quick glance, I don't see a particular problem. I didn't find any statements about their position on intellectual property, though, I'd need to look at that more closely. If we do set up there, we'll be a non-public list, so you won't be able to post from there. Anybody else, and especially those of you actually in charge of dragaera.info, have any thoughts on this? In private email if appropriate. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From mtiller at ntlworld.com Sun Feb 15 07:25:45 2004 From: mtiller at ntlworld.com (Mark Tiller) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:25:45 -0000 Subject: Greetings! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040215152400.XAW559.mta04-svc.ntlworld.com@sweetdre123rzw> > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Cooper [mailto:stikjok at hotmail.com] > Sent: 15 February 2004 05:47 > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Greetings! Dave, Welcome to the mad mob. Would it be correct to assume that you are a fighter in the SCA? Regards Mark From skzb at dreamcafe.com Sun Feb 15 15:08:33 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (skzb) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:08:33 -0800 Subject: Reliability and POV References: Message-ID: <002201c3f418$a2b72590$f900000a@theaddiction2> > I've heard people say the Introduction to Dzurlord is unreliable. Why? Has > Brust distanced himself from it? Unless Brust himself says it isn't > reliable, I will continue accepting it a "canon" (and, moreover, very > reliable, as it's written from the God POV). > I don't think you should trust anything that appears in Dzurlord. But that's just my opinion. From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 15 15:48:32 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 17:48:32 -0600 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: <002201c3f418$a2b72590$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: :P Okay, that appears to settle that... > -----Original Message----- > From: skzb [mailto:skzb at dreamcafe.com] > Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 5:09 PM > To: bryann at bryann.net; Dragaera Mailing List > Subject: Re: Reliability and POV > > > > > I've heard people say the Introduction to Dzurlord is unreliable. Why? > Has > > Brust distanced himself from it? Unless Brust himself says it isn't > > reliable, I will continue accepting it a "canon" (and, moreover, very > > reliable, as it's written from the God POV). > > > > I don't think you should trust anything that appears in Dzurlord. But > that's just my opinion. > From calianng_graves at yahoo.com Sun Feb 15 15:53:33 2004 From: calianng_graves at yahoo.com (Caliann the Elf) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:53:33 -0800 (PST) Subject: Last gasp of techno-speak Message-ID: <20040215235333.57705.qmail@web21106.mail.yahoo.com> Steve Brust might *possibly* be talked into using a Mac if there was a full-time, live-in person who could support it. (preferably cute and asian) I might *possibly* be talked into learning how to support Macs once drunken zealots at parties, whose career feild isn't anywhere CLOSE to technical, stop trying to convince me I should replace my Linux network server with a Mac box. The likeliest thing to happen, though, is that my friend will get a Front End Wizard coded for Steve's favorite game that is Linux based....upon which the whole household will switch to Linux, happily waving bye-bye to Microsoft forever. The unlikeliest thing to happen is that we will all get a hankering for Apples. Peace, Caliann *operated by the Grand Poohbah Cheese of the Universe* "Offense theives. -- they take it when it isn't offered." --Tom Digby --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online From abailey at micromuse.com Sun Feb 15 17:03:11 2004 From: abailey at micromuse.com (Andrew Bailey) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:03:11 +0800 Subject: Mac & "PC" Zealots In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <403016CF.7080803@micromuse.com> Heh. The Platform war meme is spreading.. http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004_02_08_archive.asp#107678834795958113 Scroll down a bit :) Andrew. From stikjok at hotmail.com Sun Feb 15 18:24:35 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 02:24:35 +0000 Subject: Greetings! Message-ID: > >Dave, > >Welcome to the mad mob. > >Would it be correct to assume that you are a fighter in the SCA? > >Regards > >Mark > Good god, didn't know the email addy gave it away so easy... I'm Duke Syr Gabriel ap Morgan of Calontir, now inactive. Which has nothing to do with this list, except an affinity for sharp pointy things. Regards, Dave _________________________________________________________________ Choose now from 4 levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage - no more account overload! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/ From jda3 at njit.edu Sun Feb 15 18:55:04 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 21:55:04 -0500 Subject: Who is Laszlo? Message-ID: <0HT500EI4P9443@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> SPOILER WARNING. So I just finished LOCB and it occurred to me that something doesn't make sense about Laszlo, the Count of Brimford. Laszlo is an easterner and the empress Zerika's secret lover. He is her secret lover because Laszlo is an easterner and it would be unbecoming for the Dragaeran empress to be consorting with an easterner. LOCB takes place 250 years before Phoenix in which Zerika admits to Vald that she does infact have an eastern lover and his name is Laszlo. 250 years? How could an easterner such as Laszlo manage to live for more then 120 years? I understand that Sandor (Fenarian) managed to extend his life to about 120 years of age using the power of the faerie (the orb, sorcery); but he also admitted that it was as long as he could do and he could no longer keep death at bay and would soon die. I also understand that Zerika, as the Empress and guider of the orb could possibly extend Laszlo's life using the full potential of the orb; but that seems unlikely and unthinkable. As well I also know that Arra managed to extend her life beyond natural generations, but Laszlo is hardly a servant of the Demon Goddess Verra. So who is Laszlo? Perhaps my question will be answered in Sethra Lavode. Another question as I have managed to read the entire Brokedown Palace in a single day. Is there yet any theories to who the daughter of Miklos and Brigitta is? At first I started to think that it could possibly be Cawti as Devera popped up and explained to Miklos that in the future it would be the people who would have to look out and be wary of his daughter. But then I realized that it was Devera who had spoken! It would be improbable that the daughter was Cawti because since Devera is but a small elf child, Cawti would be of middle age or older at the present time of history. At the time that Cawti would be born, the only place you would have been able to find Devera would have been in the Paths of the Dead or in the dreams of those bound to her. The fact that Devera is alive is considerable proof that the story of BP takes place a considerable time after the current Vlad Taltos stories. So then perhaps Miklos' daughter is no one of consequence and anyone who pursues to investigate such bloodlines would be in for a lost cause? Just my two cents. From matthew at infodancer.org Sun Feb 15 19:39:13 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 21:39:13 -0600 Subject: Greetings! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040216033913.GA10286@infodancer.org> On Sun, Feb 15, 2004 at 03:06:40PM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > "Dave Cooper" writes: > > I've been a fan of Mr. Brust since about '86, I felt it was time to > > connect with others. Please be gentle. > Welcome! > Gentle we mostly aren't. Reasonably polite, yes. But sharp, > opinionated, and fairly quick-witted. Think of the list as having a rapier wit. Or perhaps just as having rapiers. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From jda3 at njit.edu Sun Feb 15 19:46:45 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 22:46:45 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0HT500IUHRLZJI@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > Rumor has it that a forthcoming novel in the Vladiad is called > Tiassa...hmmmm. Also, remember that witches can live a long time (viz > Arra), Great Weapons strive to keep their owners alive, and the > relationship between reincarnation of the soul and genetics is...odd. > Vlad could be around for a while. The question is, will his chronicler? That is right. Does Vlad not get a great weapon called "Godslayer" in ADOP? From jda3 at njit.edu Sun Feb 15 19:58:14 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 22:58:14 -0500 Subject: Question about the list... Message-ID: <0HT50001FS5QR0@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but the mailing list itself seems to be rather much of a pain in the ass. The mail client I use checks for new messages from my mail server once every 60 seconds. Often I find that the messages from this list come to me in the wrong orders. Say right now I just received a message from 10:40 PM, when not 5 minutes ago I received the response to the specific question written at 10:45 PM. Why would the list send the response to me before even sending me the original message? And often I write a message to the list and it doesn't arrive in my mailbox for at least 20 minutes. From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 15 19:52:32 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 21:52:32 -0600 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > This sounds like an *excellent* pair of projects. Since you don't > give a URL, I assume nothing's up yet? I imagine I'll want to link to > it when you get it up. You are correct; I am working on creating a database of all the text that pertains to geography, to make it easier both to create the map, and demonstrate why I believe it looks the way it looks: 1. Enter all the text into an online database. 2. Create a second database of the "point A is to the of point B" type that references the first database. 3. Create some maps based on this information (for example, I think I have a fairly solid case for the relationship between Adrilankha, Castle Black, Dzur Mountain, and Nacine, which I have previously mentioned on the mailing list... I also think I have a good idea of what the area around the Pepperfields looks like). When it is ready, I will post a link to it here, and you are quite welcome to link to it as you desire, although (and I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here) in all likelyhood my site will require Internet Explorer 5.5+, Mozilla 1.0.2+ or Safari 1.2+ to use (I'm using a web application I developed where I work to run my site, and it has those requirements--actually, it was written for IE 6.0, but the other browsers I mentioned appear to work fairly well with it). Bryan From toubib21 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 15 19:59:07 2004 From: toubib21 at yahoo.com (Toubib) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 19:59:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: Who is Laszlo? In-Reply-To: <0HT500EI4P9443@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20040216035907.4636.qmail@web40110.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: > SPOILER WARNING. > > > > So I just finished LOCB and it occurred to me that > something doesn't make > sense about Laszlo, the Count of Brimford. Laszlo is > an easterner and the > empress Zerika's secret lover. He is her secret > lover because Laszlo is an > easterner and it would be unbecoming for the > Dragaeran empress to be > consorting with an easterner. LOCB takes place 250 > years before Phoenix in > which Zerika admits to Vald that she does infact > have an eastern lover and > his name is Laszlo. 250 years? How could an > easterner such as Laszlo manage > to live for more then 120 years? [snip] So who is Laszlo? Perhaps my > question will be answered > in Sethra Lavode. Althought I haven't read LOCB yet, I would hazzard a guess that it could be a different Laszlo. Also we don't know much about Laszlo in the present day, so who can say what his current status is. > Another question as I have managed to read the > entire Brokedown Palace in a > single day. Is there yet any theories to who the > daughter of Miklos and > Brigitta is? At first I started to think that it > could possibly be Cawti as > Devera popped up and explained to Miklos that in the > future it would be the > people who would have to look out and be wary of his > daughter. But then I > realized that it was Devera who had spoken! It would > be improbable that the > daughter was Cawti because since Devera is but a > small elf child, Cawti > would be of middle age or older at the present time > of history. At the time > that Cawti would be born, the only place you would > have been able to find > Devera would have been in the Paths of the Dead or > in the dreams of those > bound to her. The fact that Devera is alive is > considerable proof that the > story of BP takes place a considerable time after > the current Vlad Taltos > stories. So then perhaps Miklos' daughter is no one > of consequence and > anyone who pursues to investigate such bloodlines > would be in for a lost > cause? Cawti is Miklos and Brigitta's daughter. Remember time doesn't affect Devera the same as it does everyone else. Devera delivered a letter to her grandfather >from her grandmother with the news of her mother's birth. That pretty much demonstrates her special status in the space-time continuum. Doc ===== Doc www.toubib.us __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From toubib21 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 15 20:07:26 2004 From: toubib21 at yahoo.com (Toubib) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 20:07:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <0HT500IUHRLZJI@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <20040216040726.45265.qmail@web40101.mail.yahoo.com> > That is right. Does Vlad not get a great weapon > called "Godslayer" in ADOP? > > A Dream of Passion is just that....a dream. It has no affect on the Vladiad. . . . . . Spoiler . . . . . Vlad does get Godslayer in Issola. Doc ===== Doc www.toubib.us __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From jda3 at njit.edu Sun Feb 15 20:10:35 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 23:10:35 -0500 Subject: Who is Laszlo? In-Reply-To: <20040216035907.4636.qmail@web40110.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0HT50082KSQG0H@mta1.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > Cawti is Miklos and Brigitta's daughter. Remember time > doesn't affect Devera the same as it does everyone > else. Devera delivered a letter to her grandfather > from her grandmother with the news of her mother's > birth. That pretty much demonstrates her special > status in the space-time continuum. Ahh... I had completely forgotten about that moment. Is Cawti Miklos' daughter by fact or speculation? From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Sun Feb 15 20:52:32 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 23:52:32 -0500 Subject: Last gasp of techno-speak Message-ID: <200402152352.AA169345170@amish2000.com> From: Caliann the Elf Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 15:53:33 -0800 (PST) >The unlikeliest thing to happen is that we will all get a hankering for Apples. I dunno. It's not that unlikely when you consider that Steve Jobs is extremely, EXTREMELY attractive, and we would all do anything to please him. ... wait. That might just be me. ? MJ, owner of five computers with as many OSes From davids at kithrup.com Sun Feb 15 20:52:58 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 20:52:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <0HT500IUHRLZJI@mta8.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 15 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: >> Rumor has it that a forthcoming novel in the Vladiad is called >> Tiassa...hmmmm. Also, remember that witches can live a long time (viz >> Arra), Great Weapons strive to keep their owners alive, and the >> relationship between reincarnation of the soul and genetics is...odd. >> Vlad could be around for a while. The question is, will his chronicler? > >That is right. Does Vlad not get a great weapon called "Godslayer" in ADOP? > I think you mean.... um. I hesitate to spoil, if you havn't read it. Have you in fact read all of the Vlad books? At any rate, SKZB has stated that /A Dream of Passion/ is almost certainly not cannonical. So it is obviously shooting blanks, or perhaps a misfire. It is certainly not a useful artillary piece. From davids at kithrup.com Sun Feb 15 20:49:28 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 20:49:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Who is Laszlo? In-Reply-To: <0HT500EI4P9443@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On Sun, 15 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: >SPOILER WARNING. > > [ snip summary of the Laszlo problem ] >So who is Laszlo? Perhaps my question will be answered in Sethra >Lavode. There has been a great deal of pararectal ideation on the topic, and we have pretty much arrived at the same conclusion. No one, save perhaps SKZB, knows exactly what is going on with him. > > >Another question as I have managed to read the entire Brokedown Palace in a >single day. Is there yet any theories to who the daughter of Miklos and >Brigitta is? There are not only theories, there is a definitive /ex cathedra/ statement by Pope Steve that the daughter of Miklos and Brigitta is no other than Cawti. > It would be improbable that the daughter was Cawti because since >Devera is but a small elf child, Cawti would be of middle age or >older at the present time of history. If Devera were an ordinary Dragaeran, perhaps. But she is not. >that Cawti would be born, the only place you would have been able to find >Devera would have been in the Paths of the Dead or in the dreams of those >bound to her. Devera shows up where-ever and whenever she pleases. She is perhaps most familiar with the Paths and with Verra's Halls, but she is far more peripatetic than that. > The fact that Devera is alive is considerable proof that the story >of BP takes place a considerable time after the current Vlad Taltos >stories. It most certainly is not. From skzb at dreamcafe.com Mon Feb 16 02:17:20 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (skzb) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 02:17:20 -0800 Subject: Last gasp of techno-speak References: <20040215235333.57705.qmail@web21106.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <007d01c3f476$0fc23550$f900000a@theaddiction2> > Steve Brust might *possibly* be talked into using a Mac if there was a full-time, live-in person who could support it. (preferably cute and asian) > *chuckle* No, not even that would do it, I'm afraid. > I might *possibly* be talked into learning how to support Macs once drunken zealots at parties, whose career feild isn't anywhere CLOSE to technical, stop trying to convince me I should replace my Linux network server with a Mac box. > > The likeliest thing to happen, though, is that my friend will get a Front End Wizard coded for Steve's favorite game that is Linux based....upon which the whole household will switch to Linux, happily waving bye-bye to Microsoft forever. > Unless we go with BSD instead, which a delightful fellow has me about 75% convinced I should. He brought over a bottle of 25 year old MacCallan, which made his arguments very convincing indeed. From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 04:25:38 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 07:25:38 -0500 Subject: Who is Laszlo? In-Reply-To: <20040216035907.4636.qmail@web40110.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040216035907.4636.qmail@web40110.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3A946AA1-607B-11D8-A388-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 15, 2004, at 10:59 PM, Toubib wrote: > > --- Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: >> SPOILER WARNING. >> >> >> >> So I just finished LOCB and it occurred to me that >> something doesn't make >> sense about Laszlo, the Count of Brimford. Laszlo is >> an easterner and the >> empress Zerika's secret lover. He is her secret >> lover because Laszlo is an >> easterner and it would be unbecoming for the >> Dragaeran empress to be >> consorting with an easterner. LOCB takes place 250 >> years before Phoenix in >> which Zerika admits to Vald that she does infact >> have an eastern lover and >> his name is Laszlo. 250 years? How could an >> easterner such as Laszlo manage >> to live for more then 120 years? > [snip] > So who is Laszlo? Perhaps my >> question will be answered >> in Sethra Lavode. > > Althought I haven't read LOCB yet, I would hazzard a > guess that it could be a different Laszlo. Also we > don't know much about Laszlo in the present day, so > who can say what his current status is. > Are you suggesting that in addition to being a miscegenist, the empress is promiscuous? Or merely serially monogamous? > >> Another question as I have managed to read the >> entire Brokedown Palace in a >> single day. Is there yet any theories to who the >> daughter of Miklos and >> Brigitta is? At first I started to think that it >> could possibly be Cawti as >> Devera popped up and explained to Miklos that in the >> future it would be the >> people who would have to look out and be wary of his >> daughter. But then I >> realized that it was Devera who had spoken! It would >> be improbable that the >> daughter was Cawti because since Devera is but a >> small elf child, Cawti >> would be of middle age or older at the present time >> of history. At the time >> that Cawti would be born, the only place you would >> have been able to find >> Devera would have been in the Paths of the Dead or >> in the dreams of those >> bound to her. The fact that Devera is alive is >> considerable proof that the >> story of BP takes place a considerable time after >> the current Vlad Taltos >> stories. So then perhaps Miklos' daughter is no one >> of consequence and >> anyone who pursues to investigate such bloodlines >> would be in for a lost >> cause? > > Cawti is Miklos and Brigitta's daughter. Remember time > doesn't affect Devera the same as it does everyone > else. Devera delivered a letter to her grandfather > from her grandmother with the news of her mother's > birth. That pretty much demonstrates her special > status in the space-time continuum. > > Doc > > ===== > Doc > www.toubib.us > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. > http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html > From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Mon Feb 16 04:43:03 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 07:43:03 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 15, 2004, at 10:52 PM, Bryan Newell wrote: > > 3. Create some maps based on this information (for example, I think I > have a > fairly solid case for the relationship between Adrilankha, Castle > Black, > Dzur Mountain, and Nacine,.... Does the fact that Castle Black is a floating castle cause any concern? Floating things aren't always (perhaps aren't normally) stationary things. And even if magically stationary (as magically floating) what is the assurance that it has been station-keeping in the same place throughout the several eras of the tales? Mean Bronze Rig (Noam R. Izenberg, 10-4) From bryann at bryann.net Mon Feb 16 05:01:36 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 07:01:36 -0600 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Does the fact that Castle Black is a floating castle cause any concern? > Floating things > aren't always (perhaps aren't normally) stationary things. And even if > magically > stationary (as magically floating) what is the assurance that it has > been station-keeping > in the same place throughout the several eras of the tales? Yes, that is a big concern... I'm not ready to give text examples yet, but the distance from Dzur Mountain to Castle Black was "40 or 45 miles" per Paarfi at the end of the Interregnum, and "some 50 miles" per Vlad 240 years later, so it _appears_ that, if it moves, it tends to return to the same spot. Furthermore, a conversation towards the end of "Lord of Castle Black" (again, no text yet, this is from memory) about moving the (newly) floating Castle Black to Dzur Mountain, and how long it would take (100s if not 1000s of years) to move those 40 or 45 miles makes me think it doesn't move much, if at all. I think the Floating Castles are more Levitating Castles than Flying Castles. On a mostly-unrelated tangent, where are the flying ships? Think about it: Flying Ship vs Floating Castle, that's gotta have a high CQ (Cool Quotient)... Bryan From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 05:54:25 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 08:54:25 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 16, 2004, at 8:01 AM, Bryan Newell wrote: >> Does the fact that Castle Black is a floating castle cause any >> concern? >> Floating things >> aren't always (perhaps aren't normally) stationary things. And even if >> magically >> stationary (as magically floating) what is the assurance that it has >> been station-keeping >> in the same place throughout the several eras of the tales? > > Yes, that is a big concern... I'm not ready to give text examples yet, > but > the distance from Dzur Mountain to Castle Black was "40 or 45 miles" > per > Paarfi at the end of the Interregnum, and "some 50 miles" per Vlad 240 > years > later, so it _appears_ that, if it moves, it tends to return to the > same > spot. > > Furthermore, a conversation towards the end of "Lord of Castle Black" > (again, no text yet, this is from memory) about moving the (newly) > floating > Castle Black to Dzur Mountain, and how long it would take (100s if not > 1000s > of years) to move those 40 or 45 miles makes me think it doesn't move > much, > if at all. > > I think the Floating Castles are more Levitating Castles than Flying > Castles. > > On a mostly-unrelated tangent, where are the flying ships? Think > about it: > Flying Ship vs Floating Castle, that's gotta have a high CQ (Cool > Quotient)... > > Bryan You might think that, but I think that the responsible parties, to wit, the Orca, would see it more like a fish out of water... From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Mon Feb 16 05:50:27 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 08:50:27 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <13F2F630-6087-11D8-A689-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 16, 2004, at 8:01 AM, Bryan Newell wrote: > > I think the Floating Castles are more Levitating Castles than Flying > Castles. > > On a mostly-unrelated tangent, where are the flying ships? Think > about it: > Flying Ship vs Floating Castle, that's gotta have a high CQ (Cool > Quotient)... I believe the former sentence answers the latter question. If a Floating Castle takes a century to cover 50 miles, even though a boat is much lighter (take for example 1/1000th the mass), it would still take over a month (or possibly two Dragaeran months) to cover the same 50 miles. It might be formidable, but not a hard to hit target. I kind of wonder why aerial combat or Chinese Cinema-esque wire fighting (without the wires) is not a bigger deal in general where magic is concerned. I'd think a levitating Athyra would be a major advantage in a field combat (assuming his personal protection was equal to the task - s/he'd of course be a major target as well). That or having the wizards catapult warriors into combat. I would imagine a Dzurlord, while not enamored of the idea of being moved around quite like that, would acquiesce anyway for the opportunity to be literally dropped into the thick of the fight behind enemy lines, surrounded by dozens of opponents as far as the eye can see... Bronze Enigma (Noam Izenberg) From casey at the-bat.net Mon Feb 16 06:16:04 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:16:04 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: <13F2F630-6087-11D8-A689-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: Noam Izenberg wrote: > I kind of wonder why aerial combat or Chinese Cinema-esque wire > fighting (without the wires) is not a bigger deal in general where > magic is concerned. I'd think a levitating Athyra would be a major > advantage in a field combat A) Could be that it has been tried in the past and fallen out of favor because of the relative ease of countering. (See _Dragon_ for discussion of uses of sorcery in combat.) B) I'd think that self-levitation to the degree of acrobatic maneuvering you describe would require an inordinate degree of concentration. It might make it hard to _fight_ effectively. The only self-levitation we've seen has been fairly slow moving. From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 06:24:11 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:24:11 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 16, 2004, at 9:16 AM, Casey Rousseau wrote: > Noam Izenberg wrote: >> I kind of wonder why aerial combat or Chinese Cinema-esque wire >> fighting (without the wires) is not a bigger deal in general where >> magic is concerned. I'd think a levitating Athyra would be a major >> advantage in a field combat > > A) Could be that it has been tried in the past and fallen out of favor > because of the relative ease of countering. (See _Dragon_ for > discussion > of uses of sorcery in combat.) > B) I'd think that self-levitation to the degree of acrobatic > maneuvering > you describe would require an inordinate degree of concentration. It > might make it hard to _fight_ effectively. The only self-levitation > we've seen has been fairly slow moving. > > I nearly think you have misremembered the arrival of the Necromancer. From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Mon Feb 16 06:34:40 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:34:40 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40C29FA8-608D-11D8-A689-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 16, 2004, at 9:16 AM, Casey Rousseau wrote: > A) Could be that it has been tried in the past and fallen out of favor > because of the relative ease of countering. (See _Dragon_ for > discussion > of uses of sorcery in combat.) It's been a while. I'll look it up, Thanks. > B) I'd think that self-levitation to the degree of acrobatic > maneuvering > you describe would require an inordinate degree of concentration. It > might make it hard to _fight_ effectively. The only self-levitation > we've seen has been fairly slow moving. I agree, though I might again imagine a Dzurlord or two (or even a school of them) who would take up and hone this particular fighting art. Dzurlords have little personal affinity for magic from what I read, but magic that assists the particular proclivity for hand to hand martial combat would probably have some attraction. Though perhaps the flying bit would cause concern that they'd be mistaken for Tiassa (assuming the respective descriptions are close enough to correct). > Help! - or an amazing beer. (What Noam Raphael Izenberg is in desperate need of right now) From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 07:08:14 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:08:14 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: <40C29FA8-608D-11D8-A689-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> References: <40C29FA8-608D-11D8-A689-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: On Feb 16, 2004, at 9:34 AM, Noam Izenberg wrote: > > On Feb 16, 2004, at 9:16 AM, Casey Rousseau wrote: >> A) Could be that it has been tried in the past and fallen out of favor >> because of the relative ease of countering. (See _Dragon_ for >> discussion >> of uses of sorcery in combat.) > > It's been a while. I'll look it up, Thanks. > >> B) I'd think that self-levitation to the degree of acrobatic >> maneuvering >> you describe would require an inordinate degree of concentration. It >> might make it hard to _fight_ effectively. The only self-levitation >> we've seen has been fairly slow moving. > > I agree, though I might again imagine a Dzurlord or two (or even a > school of them) > who would take up and hone this particular fighting art. Dzurlords > have little personal > affinity for magic from what I read, but magic that assists the > particular proclivity for > hand to hand martial combat would probably have some attraction. > Though perhaps > the flying bit would cause concern that they'd be mistaken for Tiassa > (assuming the > respective descriptions are close enough to correct). > >> > Help! - or an amazing beer. (What Noam Raphael Izenberg is in > desperate need of right now) > > I suspect that Tazendra would take pointed issue with your analysis. Not to mention those portions of Sethra Lavode that remind one of a Dzurlord! From pgranzeau at cox.net Mon Feb 16 06:53:14 2004 From: pgranzeau at cox.net (Peter H. Granzeau) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:53:14 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> I keep seeing mention to "Dzurlord", as if I should know what it is. Well, I don't know. What is it? -- Regards, Pete pgranzeau at cox.net From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Mon Feb 16 07:18:47 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:18:47 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: References: <40C29FA8-608D-11D8-A689-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <6A952426-6093-11D8-A689-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> >> I agree, though I might again imagine a Dzurlord or two (or even a >> school of them) >> who would take up and hone this particular fighting art. Dzurlords >> have little personal >> affinity for magic from what I read, but magic that assists the >> particular proclivity for >> hand to hand martial combat would probably have some attraction. >> Though perhaps >> the flying bit would cause concern that they'd be mistaken for Tiassa >> (assuming the >> respective descriptions are close enough to correct). On Feb 16, 2004, at 10:08 AM, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > I suspect that Tazendra would take pointed issue with your analysis. > Not to mention those portions of Sethra Lavode that remind one of a > Dzurlord! Heh. Ed Meg Avasum, Tazendra. I, Brazen Gnome (Noam Izenberg) (Is there a revivifier in the house?) From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Feb 16 08:05:07 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:05:07 -0600 Subject: Greetings! In-Reply-To: (Dave Cooper's message of "Mon, 16 Feb 2004 02:24:35 +0000") References: Message-ID: "Dave Cooper" writes: > Good god, didn't know the email addy gave it away so easy... I'm Duke > Syr Gabriel ap Morgan of Calontir, now inactive. Which has nothing to > do with this list, except an affinity for sharp pointy things. Most of us can translate "stikjok" into "stick jock" pretty easily. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Feb 16 08:10:39 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:10:39 -0600 Subject: Question about the list... In-Reply-To: <0HT50001FS5QR0@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> (jda3@njit.edu's message of "Sun, 15 Feb 2004 22:58:14 -0500") References: <0HT50001FS5QR0@mta2.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod writes: > I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but the mailing list itself > seems to be rather much of a pain in the ass. The mail client I use checks > for new messages from my mail server once every 60 seconds. Often I find > that the messages from this list come to me in the wrong orders. Say right > now I just received a message from 10:40 PM, when not 5 minutes ago I > received the response to the specific question written at 10:45 PM. Why > would the list send the response to me before even sending me the original > message? Because the first attempt to send the message failed. So it got deferred, and during the deferral, the response came in, and the first attempt to sent *it* succeeded. > And often I write a message to the list and it doesn't arrive in my mailbox > for at least 20 minutes. Sounds like you have a very busy mail server. Mine is that busy once a month, on the 15th (70,000 copy newsletter distribution in progress), but the rest of the time it's quite idle and moves mail quite fast. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From mia_mcdavid at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 08:03:40 2004 From: mia_mcdavid at comcast.net (Mia McDavid) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:03:40 -0600 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> Message-ID: <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> Not to worry. Dzurlord is synonymous with Dzur. There are no Dzurcommoners. HTH Peter H. Granzeau wrote: > I keep seeing mention to "Dzurlord", as if I should know what it is. > > Well, I don't know. > > What is it? > From jda3 at njit.edu Mon Feb 16 08:17:46 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:17:46 -0500 Subject: Question about the list... In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0HT6007MUQE8W3@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > Sounds like you have a very busy mail server. Mine is that busy once > a month, on the 15th (70,000 copy newsletter distribution in > progress), but the rest of the time it's quite idle and moves mail > quite fast. I use the EDU account my college gave me. Normally messages come to me pretty quickly. And the EDU account is from Yahoo Magazines #1 most Wired Campus in the US; so I see no reason why it would be sluggish. From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Mon Feb 16 08:28:35 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:28:35 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> Message-ID: <4030EFB3.40102@earthlink.net> Peter H. Granzeau wrote: > I keep seeing mention to "Dzurlord", as if I should know what it is. > > Well, I don't know. > > What is it? > Heh. One of the points I planned on making but forgot to make in whether to consider Dzurlord canon (Re: the sources in geography discussion) was that even people on this list, which I would believe constitutes the more-than-casually-interested fan base, are not familiar with Dzurlord (and thus Steve doesn't have to worry too much about whether people will remember what was written in Dzurlord if he decides to not use what's in there). Allow me to quote David Silberstein, expanding on Casey Rousseau's response to basically the same question you had: >On Sun, 31 Aug 2003, Casey Rousseau wrote: > > > >>>It was a Choose-your-own-adventure book set in Dragaera. Mssmkt paper. >>>Ca.1984 >> >> > >This page: > > http://www.mojoworld.net/sil/ref/books.html > >States that: > > Dzurlord is really only noteable for the introduction written by > Steven Brust. The rest of the text is not his direct work. This > book is out of print but you can read the introduction here. > >(where "here" is a link to the following page:) > > http://www.mojoworld.net/sil/treats/dzurlordintro.html > > > Jose -- Jose Marquez \ Cthulhu 2004 jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ Why vote for http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ the lesser evil? From jda3 at njit.edu Mon Feb 16 08:27:26 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:27:26 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> Message-ID: <0HT6004CLQTN7I@mta9.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > Not to worry. Dzurlord is synonymous with Dzur. There are no > Dzurcommoners. > > HTH > > Peter H. Granzeau wrote: > > > I keep seeing mention to "Dzurlord", as if I should know what it is. > > > > Well, I don't know. > > > > What is it? Hah... Dzurpeons... Anyway, what you are probably thinking of is the Introduction to SKZB "Dzurlord". Though I myself have never read it, SKZB himself says that it is in no way a source of information on Dragaera. From pete.flugstad at icon-labs.com Mon Feb 16 08:38:00 2004 From: pete.flugstad at icon-labs.com (Pete Flugstad) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:38:00 -0600 Subject: Question about the list... In-Reply-To: <0HT6007MUQE8W3@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> References: <0HT6007MUQE8W3@mta10.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: <4030F1E8.4050302@icon-labs.com> Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: >>Sounds like you have a very busy mail server. Mine is that busy once >>a month, on the 15th (70,000 copy newsletter distribution in >>progress), but the rest of the time it's quite idle and moves mail >>quite fast. > > I use the EDU account my college gave me. Normally messages come to me > pretty quickly. And the EDU account is from Yahoo Magazines #1 most Wired > Campus in the US; so I see no reason why it would be sluggish. one word: SPAM. And a "wired" campus has nothing to do with the speed of a mail server, which given that the campus is heavily wired, could be drowning under the load of all the mail clients on all those wires. Pete From warbi at warbi.net Mon Feb 16 11:29:19 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:29:19 -0800 Subject: Last gasp of techno-speak References: <20040215235333.57705.qmail@web21106.mail.yahoo.com> <007d01c3f476$0fc23550$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: <003e01c3f4c3$2d92c7a0$3dadfea9@warbi> ----- Original Message ----- From: "skzb" To: "Caliann the Elf" ; Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 2:17 AM Subject: Re: Last gasp of techno-speak > Unless we go with BSD instead, which a delightful fellow has me about 75% > convinced I should. He brought over a bottle of 25 year old MacCallan, > which made his arguments very convincing indeed. A good bottle of single malt can convince one of *many* things! warbi From warbi at warbi.net Mon Feb 16 11:33:16 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:33:16 -0800 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> Message-ID: <005901c3f4c3$babdb220$3dadfea9@warbi> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter H. Granzeau" To: "Brust list" Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 6:53 AM Subject: Really, really, really stupid question > I keep seeing mention to "Dzurlord", as if I should know what it is. > > Well, I don't know. > > What is it? > > -- > Regards, Pete > pgranzeau at cox.net It's another one of the houses- like a Dragonlord. Tazendra is one. They are always ready to fight- the worse the odds, the more they want to fight. warbi > > > From frank at exit.com Mon Feb 16 09:58:04 2004 From: frank at exit.com (Frank Mayhar) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 09:58:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Last gasp of techno-speak In-Reply-To: <003e01c3f4c3$2d92c7a0$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: <200402161758.i1GHw4GG012125@realtime.exit.com> warbi wrote: > From: "skzb" > > Unless we go with BSD instead, which a delightful fellow has me about 75% > > convinced I should. He brought over a bottle of 25 year old MacCallan, > > which made his arguments very convincing indeed. > A good bottle of single malt can convince one of *many* things! warbi See, this is the difference between BSD-folk and Linux-folk. If Linux-folk are old enough to drink (not a forgone conclusion by any means), they're not old enough to know what is good. BSD-folk, on the other hand, tend to be not only well above the age of majority, they've been around long enough to know the difference between the good stuff and the best stuff. (In my case it's not the beverage brewed in Scotland, it is a variety of beverages of slightly lower alcohol content brewed in Belgium, usually although not always by monks. The price is pretty much the same, though. :-) -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/ http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/ From davids at kithrup.com Mon Feb 16 11:16:09 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:16:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Mia McDavid wrote: > >Not to worry. Dzurlord is synonymous with Dzur. There are no >Dzurcommoners. > Actually, there might be. I get the notion that "lord" as a suffix (Dragonlord, Dzurlord, and also Hawklord [1]) might indicate that the individual does rank above other Dragons or Dzur or Hawks who are *not* lords, perhaps having to do with how much land they control, perhaps with whether they control any land at all. For example, Morrolan is a Dragonlord. He's Count of Southmoor, probably Duke of Eastmanswatch - that's a fairly large chunk of land, altogether. On the other hand, there's Dortmond (to pick one) from /Dragon/. Given that he's been soldiering for 200 years, he probably doesn't have any lands that he's responsible for. I think he would just be a Dragon, not a Dragonlord. Anyway, that's my current pararectal ideation on the topic. No doubt [1] Vlad mouths off to a Hawklord in /Jhereg/, and I find myself wondering if it was none other than Paarfi of Roundwood. Of course, there are probably many Hawklords; there's no reason to think it was Paarfi. And come to think of it, we've never seen anything to indicate Paarfi's rank, have we? From jda3 at njit.edu Mon Feb 16 11:32:21 2004 From: jda3 at njit.edu (Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 14:32:21 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <0HT600JWUZEVHH@mta6.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> > Actually, there might be. I get the notion that "lord" as a suffix > (Dragonlord, Dzurlord, and also Hawklord [1]) might indicate that the > individual does rank above other Dragons or Dzur or Hawks who are > *not* lords, perhaps having to do with how much land they control, > perhaps with whether they control any land at all. For example, > Morrolan is a Dragonlord. He's Count of Southmoor, probably Duke of > Eastmanswatch - that's a fairly large chunk of land, altogether. On > the other hand, there's Dortmond (to pick one) from /Dragon/. Given > that he's been soldiering for 200 years, he probably doesn't have any > lands that he's responsible for. I think he would just be a Dragon, > not a Dragonlord. A pretty good derivation... but you forget that throughout all of SKZB's books, he calls all Dragon soldiers as "Dragonlords" even if he knows nothing about their lineage or estates. From mklahn at mac.com Mon Feb 16 12:07:04 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 14:07:04 -0600 Subject: Who is Laszlo? In-Reply-To: <3A946AA1-607B-11D8-A388-0003938F1608@comcast.net> References: <20040216035907.4636.qmail@web40110.mail.yahoo.com> <3A946AA1-607B-11D8-A388-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Feb 16, 2004, at 6:25 , Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > Are you suggesting that in addition to being a miscegenist, the > empress is promiscuous? Or merely serially monogamous? Perhaps she is similar to the woman in the song "Henry the Eighth": She was married seven times before, every one was a Laz-a-lo (Laz-a-lo) Wouldn't take a Mario or Vlad. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From casey at the-bat.net Mon Feb 16 12:24:53 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:24:53 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > I nearly think you have misremembered the arrival of the Necromancer. The Necromancer, Sethra Lavode and Vlad are very exceptional individuals. From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 12:43:42 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:43:42 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 16, 2004, at 3:24 PM, Casey Rousseau wrote: > Kenneth Gorelick wrote: >> I nearly think you have misremembered the arrival of the Necromancer. > > The Necromancer, Sethra Lavode and Vlad are very exceptional > individuals. > > Nonetheless, they HAVE been seen! From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 12:41:22 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:41:22 -0500 Subject: Who is Laszlo? In-Reply-To: References: <20040216035907.4636.qmail@web40110.mail.yahoo.com> <3A946AA1-607B-11D8-A388-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <7B805C9C-60C0-11D8-AAF8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 16, 2004, at 3:07 PM, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > On Feb 16, 2004, at 6:25 , Kenneth Gorelick wrote: >> Are you suggesting that in addition to being a miscegenist, the >> empress is promiscuous? Or merely serially monogamous? > > Perhaps she is similar to the woman in the song "Henry the Eighth": > > She was married seven times before, > every one was a Laz-a-lo (Laz-a-lo) > Wouldn't take a Mario or Vlad. > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > > He got married to the Empress next door she'd been married seven times before? I think not! (as R?n? Descartes said right before he ceased to be...) From bonham15 at cox.net Mon Feb 16 13:55:01 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:55:01 -0600 Subject: Reliability and POV References: <002201c3f418$a2b72590$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: <002001c3f4d7$871ebb30$1e1d6344@user79dn2jmjai> > > > I've heard people say the Introduction to Dzurlord is unreliable. Why? > Has > > Brust distanced himself from it? Unless Brust himself says it isn't > > reliable, I will continue accepting it a "canon" (and, moreover, very > > reliable, as it's written from the God POV). > > > > I don't think you should trust anything that appears in Dzurlord. But > that's just my opinion. its a well known fact that you can't trust that darned skzb guy. he's notoriously slippery and is rumored to have a poker face for moments like this... then his face contorts in a jhereg sneer and his eyes light up like a dzurlord charging 300 easterners.... of course, i could be wrong.... andy From bonham15 at cox.net Mon Feb 16 14:07:03 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 16:07:03 -0600 Subject: Reliability and POV References: Message-ID: <005201c3f4d9$35641d60$1e1d6344@user79dn2jmjai> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Casey Rousseau" To: Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 8:16 AM Subject: RE: Reliability and POV > Noam Izenberg wrote: > > I kind of wonder why aerial combat or Chinese Cinema-esque wire > > fighting (without the wires) is not a bigger deal in general where > > magic is concerned. I'd think a levitating Athyra would be a major > > advantage in a field combat > > A) Could be that it has been tried in the past and fallen out of favor > because of the relative ease of countering. (See _Dragon_ for discussion > of uses of sorcery in combat.) > B) I'd think that self-levitation to the degree of acrobatic maneuvering > you describe would require an inordinate degree of concentration. It > might make it hard to _fight_ effectively. The only self-levitation > we've seen has been fairly slow moving. heh, you'd give them an airborne target to focus their sorceries on.... i'd not want to be that athyra.. to paraphrase an axiom, no matter how subtle the wizard, massed point of attack sorceries will seriously cramp their style... andy From ehahn at isochronism.com Mon Feb 16 14:47:48 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 17:47:48 -0500 Subject: Last gasp of techno-speak In-Reply-To: <007d01c3f476$0fc23550$f900000a@theaddiction2> References: <20040215235333.57705.qmail@web21106.mail.yahoo.com> <007d01c3f476$0fc23550$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: <24964F9C-60D2-11D8-898C-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> On 16 Feb 2004, at 5:17 AM, skzb wrote: > Unless we go with BSD instead, which a delightful fellow has me about > 75% > convinced I should. He brought over a bottle of 25 year old > MacCallan, > which made his arguments very convincing indeed. You sell your allegiance cheaply, milord. 40 year Talisker, at the very least. :-) ed (Just watch this devolve into *another* flame war.) -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From warlord at dragon.com Mon Feb 16 15:00:05 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 18:00:05 -0500 Subject: Last gasp of techno-speak In-Reply-To: <24964F9C-60D2-11D8-898C-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Edward Hahn [mailto:ehahn at isochronism.com] > Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 5:48 PM > To: SKZB List > Subject: Re: Last gasp of techno-speak > > > On 16 Feb 2004, at 5:17 AM, skzb wrote: > > Unless we go with BSD instead, which a delightful fellow has me about > > 75% > > convinced I should. He brought over a bottle of 25 year old > > MacCallan, > > which made his arguments very convincing indeed. > > You sell your allegiance cheaply, milord. 40 year Talisker, at the > very least. > > :-) > > ed (Just watch this devolve into *another* flame war.) Ooo! *rubs hands together* Let me help. Which beer do you think goes best with pasta ? W (who prefers Lagavulin the way it *should* be served: neat) From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Mon Feb 16 15:17:17 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 18:17:17 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question Message-ID: <200402161817.AA98042182@amish2000.com> From: David Silberstein Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:16:09 -0800 (PST) >On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Mia McDavid wrote: > >> >>Not to worry. Dzurlord is synonymous with Dzur. There are no >>Dzurcommoners. >> >[1] Vlad mouths off to a Hawklord in /Jhereg/, and I find myself >wondering if it was none other than Paarfi of Roundwood. Of course, >there are probably many Hawklords; there's no reason to think it was >Paarfi. And come to think of it, we've never seen anything to >indicate Paarfi's rank, have we? I seem to recall that he is _Sir_ Paarfi of Roundwood, right? Ah, here we go - as of the publication of _Five Hundred Years After_, he is Sir Paarfi of Roundwood, writing from Springsign Manor. (Minor grumble: Daymar would be EVEN MORE GLOMPY if it turns out that he's Hawk Heir or something. Even if he never lives to be Hawk Emperor, I get the giggles whenever I think of a Hawk Emperor being Daymarish at petitioners. Seems to me that Hawk Emperors would run a higher risk of regicidal feelings than other emperors would, sheerly on account of their amazingly glompy and frustratingly vague ways.) ? mj From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Mon Feb 16 15:12:51 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 18:12:51 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question Message-ID: <200402161812.AA169935012@amish2000.com> ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 14:32:21 -0500 >> Actually, there might be. I get the notion that "lord" as a suffix >> (Dragonlord, Dzurlord, and also Hawklord [1]) might indicate that the >> individual does rank above other Dragons or Dzur or Hawks who are >> *not* lords, perhaps having to do with how much land they control, >> perhaps with whether they control any land at all. For example, >> Morrolan is a Dragonlord. He's Count of Southmoor, probably Duke of >> Eastmanswatch - that's a fairly large chunk of land, altogether. On >> the other hand, there's Dortmond (to pick one) from /Dragon/. Given >> that he's been soldiering for 200 years, he probably doesn't have any >> lands that he's responsible for. I think he would just be a Dragon, >> not a Dragonlord. > >A pretty good derivation... but you forget that throughout all of SKZB's >books, he calls all Dragon soldiers as "Dragonlords" even if he knows >nothing about their lineage or estates. Moreover, you just don't want to take the chance of offending any Dragon, whether or not he happens to have lands or a title. I think that, in that case, "lord" as a suffix is a prudent courtesy, extended to random persons of the House of the Dragon against the chance that the omission of "-lord" would possibly cause them to have hurt feelings and take out those hurt feelings ON YOUR SPLEEN. As a rule of thumb, any Dragon, "real" lord or not, could probably tie you into a pretzel and then skewer you, without being put to any real trouble, so giving 'em a "-lord" keeps everyone happy and your organs in their rightful places. ? mj From agrajag at dragaera.net Mon Feb 16 16:51:58 2004 From: agrajag at dragaera.net (Jag) Date: 16 Feb 2004 19:51:58 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <200402161812.AA169935012@amish2000.com> References: <200402161812.AA169935012@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <1076979118.2558.26.camel@loiosh> On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 18:12, M J wrote: > Moreover, you just don't want to take the chance of offending any Dragon, whether or not he happens to have lands or a title. I think that, in that case, "lord" as a suffix is a prudent courtesy, extended to random persons of the House of the Dragon against the chance that the omission of "-lord" would possibly cause them to have hurt feelings and take out those hurt feelings ON YOUR SPLEEN. That is, until you call a non-lord member of the house of Dragon a 'Dragonlord' in front of someone who truly is a Dragonlord, and thus becomes offended at you putting the lesser man on his level. With that said, I'm of the opinion that all Dragons are Dragonlord, and all Dzur are Dzurlords. Has anyone noticed that the '-lord' only works with Dragons, Dzur, and Hawk? For some reason, 'Phoenixlord', or 'Athyralord' just doesn't sound the same. From mam at theworld.com Mon Feb 16 17:28:16 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:28:16 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <0HT1008C3G8C72@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, Jason *Jaxel* Axelrod wrote: #I think any good Frenchman over the balcony of a keep would assure you that #nothing can be faster then the average airspeed of an African Jhereg... What about the average airspeed of an evilly smirking Frenchman tossed off his balcony? Until the sudden stop, of course. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Mon Feb 16 17:26:53 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:26:53 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <000801c3f25e$642e7640$13856044@user79dn2jmjai> Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, bonham15 wrote: #the temerity! how dare you attempt to derail the pc/mac/linux/blah/blah/blah #holy war! for this insult, we are sending Mario after your hard drive -_^ Speaking of (ahem) whom, and thus reminded of identity issues... I recently started rereading Philip Jose Farmer's _Riverworld_, and had a d'ohhh moment as I realized something that I don't remember realizing on my first read many years ago. (Hang in there, I promise this will be on topic.) For those of you who don't know, the (somewhat simplified) premise of this book and its sequels is that after a disaster has killed off humanity, everyone who ever lived on Earth finds themselves resurrected, with a physiological age of about 25, on a planet whose entire surface has spparently been formed into the valley of a single gigantic river. The hero and POV character is Sir Richard Burton, the 19th-century British adventurer, explorer, diplomat, fighter, translator of the Arabian Nights, and master of many more accomplishments. Farmer likes to go into considerable expository detail about the earthly biographies of his characters, who include also a Mrs. Alice Hargreaves (ne'e Alice Pleasance Liddell) and Hermann Goering. One of Burton's companions is a 20th-centurian named Peter Jairus Frigate. In his pre-Resurrection life, Frigate was fascinated with Burton's life (and tells him how he became so), and seems to know all that the historical record has to tell about him; he is a significant supporting character, but is also the author's mouthpiece for a lot of Burton's biography. What suddenly hit me was the initials: Peter Jairus Frigate Philip Jose Farmer D'ohhh! Frigate is Farmer's self-insertion! At least, P.J.Frigate is likely telling us how P.J.Farmer became so fascinated with Sir Richard that he chose to make him the hero of this book. And it's not as if I hadn't known about Farmer's use of initials before. I don't remember which book it's in -- maybe a Riverworld sequel, or maybe something unconnected -- but he makes a major character of (the fictional?) Phileas Fogg, the hero of Jules Verne's _Around the World in Eighty Days_, and at the end, still speaking as author/narrator IIRC, points out that the author and the hero are both P.F. Now, who do we know who sometimes attaches "P.J.F." to his name?... -- Mark A. Mandel, The Filker With No Nickname http://mark.cracksandshards.com/filk.html Now on the Filker's Bardic Webring! From mam at theworld.com Mon Feb 16 17:36:37 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:36:37 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040215162351.GE50426@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Sun, 15 Feb 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: #Agreed. Savn has the potential to be the 'everyman' character, the #guy who wants a home, a wife, children, and will be both complete and #content once he has them. Unfortunately the Dragearan lifespan means #that Savn will still be an adolescent long after Vlad's in his grave; Let's not be too sure of that. 1. Vlad is the reincarnation of a Dragaeran. 2. Vlad is now the owner of a Great Weapon. 3. This one is just my speculation: Vlad may be the son of a goddess. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Mon Feb 16 17:49:20 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:49:20 -0500 Subject: Greetings! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: #"Dave Cooper" writes: # #> Good god, didn't know the email addy gave it away so easy... I'm Duke #> Syr Gabriel ap Morgan of Calontir, now inactive. Which has nothing to #> do with this list, except an affinity for sharp pointy things. # #Most of us can translate "stikjok" into "stick jock" pretty easily. Perhaps more to the point, we are not mundanes. Most of us, or many of us, know what "stick jock" means. (An SCA fighter, where SCA = Society for Creative Anachronism. [http://www.sca.org/]) -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Mon Feb 16 17:56:18 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:56:18 -0500 Subject: What is an iorich? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: #One of the things noted by Mario^H^Hk was that in /The Phoenix Guards/ #there is some small confusion on the part of, well, *somebody* - #Paarfi or Steve or both - between "Iorich" and "Issola". Ummm... I think Steve pointed out a detail I'd overlooked in the text that makes that not an issue. But I can't find it in my email file, and my books are still packed away (but we've got a lot of the bookcases set up!). -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From stikjok at hotmail.com Mon Feb 16 18:28:18 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 02:28:18 +0000 Subject: Reliability and POV Message-ID: > > Does the fact that Castle Black is a floating castle cause any concern? > > Floating things > > aren't always (perhaps aren't normally) stationary things. And even if > > magically > > stationary (as magically floating) what is the assurance that it has > > been station-keeping > > in the same place throughout the several eras of the tales? >I think the Floating Castles are more Levitating Castles than Flying >Castles. > >On a mostly-unrelated tangent, where are the flying ships? Think about it: >Flying Ship vs Floating Castle, that's gotta have a high CQ (Cool >Quotient)... > >Bryan On a mixed military note, consider the kinetic energy accumilated from boulders shot over the side to the ground, even if gunpowder isn't around... but as has been noted before, magic changes everything. Darned if I know how Brust can write up battles, when for any military action, any fact of science, he can think up some simple spell that will negate it. I used to game with a bunch of guys and our favorite expression was "FM". Meaning, "How was that possible?" "Fuckin' magic." Dave _________________________________________________________________ Choose now from 4 levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage - no more account overload! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/ From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 18:20:43 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:20:43 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 16, 2004, at 8:36 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Sun, 15 Feb 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: > > #Agreed. Savn has the potential to be the 'everyman' character, the > #guy who wants a home, a wife, children, and will be both complete and > #content once he has them. Unfortunately the Dragearan lifespan means > #that Savn will still be an adolescent long after Vlad's in his grave; > > Let's not be too sure of that. > > 1. Vlad is the reincarnation of a Dragaeran. > > 2. Vlad is now the owner of a Great Weapon. > > 3. This one is just my speculation: Vlad may be the son of a goddess. > > -- Mark A. Mandel > http://cracksandshards.com > a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website > > > Only in her own mind! Remember, his mother died when he was young. I suspect his father would have remembered shtupping a REAL goddess... From Gaertk at aol.com Mon Feb 16 18:36:50 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:36:50 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven Message-ID: <4C8AB87B.61FA7849.00048EA6@aol.com> Kenneth Gorelick writes: [Vlad son of a goddess?] > Only in her own mind! Remember, his mother died when he was > young. I suspect his father would have remembered shtupping > a REAL goddess... _Taltos_ page 4: "My father kept changing his story, so I don't know if she died of if she left him" --KG From Gaertk at aol.com Mon Feb 16 18:32:50 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:32:50 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? Message-ID: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> This post is off-topic, but at least it's about books.... A month from now I plan on pre-ordering _Sethra Lavode_, and I need to spend $7 more to get free shipping, so I need to chose something cheap I really want to read. I thought I'd ask here for opinions, since several of you are on my Share the Love list, and there may be something here that you want too. If anyone else wants to be on that list, just say so (and everyone is welcome to put me on their list). My current choices: Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ Butcher, _Fool Moon_ Dean, _The Hidden Land_ Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ Unfortunately, the Bujold is the only one not in the middle of a series, and it's also the only one I've already read (that's not a coincidence), so I'm not in a hurry to get it. (I'll assume dd-b will recommend his wife's book and save him the trouble of posting.) Of course, I'll go through all this again in a couple months when I try to get free shipping for _A Hat Full of Sky_ (and I'll need $14 for that). --KG From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Mon Feb 16 18:49:08 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:49:08 -0500 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040217024908.GA54485@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Sun, Feb 15, 2004 at 10:07:35AM -0600, Bryan Newell wrote: > I've heard people say the Introduction to Dzurlord is unreliable. Why? Has > Brust distanced himself from it? Yes, he has. From Hereward at rogers.com Mon Feb 16 19:03:52 2004 From: Hereward at rogers.com (Gary Russell) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 22:03:52 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <004901c3f502$ac7cb6e0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> I liked the Dean book very much. I'd probably recommend the LMB first, but since you've read it, not so urgent. GJR ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 9:32 PM Subject: What Should I Buy? > This post is off-topic, but at least it's about books.... > > A month from now I plan on pre-ordering _Sethra Lavode_, and > I need to spend $7 more to get free shipping, so I need to > chose something cheap I really want to read. > > I thought I'd ask here for opinions, since several of you are > on my Share the Love list, and there may be something here > that you want too. If anyone else wants to be on that list, > just say so (and everyone is welcome to put me on their > list). > > My current choices: > > Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ > Butcher, _Fool Moon_ > Dean, _The Hidden Land_ > Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ > > Unfortunately, the Bujold is the only one not in the middle > of a series, and it's also the only one I've already read > (that's not a coincidence), so I'm not in a hurry to get it. > > (I'll assume dd-b will recommend his wife's book and save him > the trouble of posting.) > > Of course, I'll go through all this again in a couple months > when I try to get free shipping for _A Hat Full of Sky_ (and > I'll need $14 for that). > > > --KG > From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Mon Feb 16 18:56:43 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:56:43 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> Message-ID: <20040217025643.GD54485@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 09:53:14AM -0500, Peter H. Granzeau wrote: > I keep seeing mention to "Dzurlord", as if I should know what it is. Well, it looks as if everyone is going to tell you true things but no-one is going to answer your question. Dzurlord was one of those 'roll your own adventure' books, based in Dragaera. It was written with Brusts permission, but has been explicitly said by Brust not to be canonical. From abailey at micromuse.com Mon Feb 16 18:52:23 2004 From: abailey at micromuse.com (Andrew Bailey) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:52:23 +0800 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <403181E7.9090909@micromuse.com> Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > This post is off-topic, but at least it's about books.... > > A month from now I plan on pre-ordering _Sethra Lavode_, and > I need to spend $7 more to get free shipping, so I need to > chose something cheap I really want to read. > > I thought I'd ask here for opinions, since several of you are > on my Share the Love list, and there may be something here > that you want too. If anyone else wants to be on that list, > just say so (and everyone is welcome to put me on their > list). > > My current choices: > > Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ > Butcher, _Fool Moon_ > Dean, _The Hidden Land_ > Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ > > Unfortunately, the Bujold is the only one not in the middle > of a series, and it's also the only one I've already read > (that's not a coincidence), so I'm not in a hurry to get it. > > (I'll assume dd-b will recommend his wife's book and save him > the trouble of posting.) > > Of course, I'll go through all this again in a couple months > when I try to get free shipping for _A Hat Full of Sky_ (and > I'll need $14 for that). > Well, _The Confusion_ by Neal Stephenson comes out that month as well, unfortunatly that is also a book 2 :( I would always recomend _The Scar_ by China Mi?ville if you haven't read it yet ( and Perdido Street Station as well ) Andrew. > > --KG > > From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Mon Feb 16 18:51:58 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:51:58 -0500 Subject: Last gasp of techno-speak In-Reply-To: <003e01c3f4c3$2d92c7a0$3dadfea9@warbi> References: <20040215235333.57705.qmail@web21106.mail.yahoo.com> <007d01c3f476$0fc23550$f900000a@theaddiction2> <003e01c3f4c3$2d92c7a0$3dadfea9@warbi> Message-ID: <20040217025158.GB54485@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 11:29:19AM -0800, warbi wrote: > From: "skzb" > > Unless we go with BSD instead, which a delightful fellow has me about 75% > > convinced I should. He brought over a bottle of 25 year old MacCallan, > > which made his arguments very convincing indeed. > A good bottle of single malt can convince one of *many* things! warbi Only until the next morning, sadly. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From stikjok at hotmail.com Mon Feb 16 18:49:42 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 02:49:42 +0000 Subject: Question for THE Steven Message-ID: >1. Vlad is the reincarnation of a Dragaeran. > >2. Vlad is now the owner of a Great Weapon. > >3. This one is just my speculation: Vlad may be the son of a goddess. > >-- Mark A. Mandel Oh, for the love of... what self respecting goddess would have bumped uglies with Vlad's father? Now his grandfather is quite a man, but we've read how mortal his wife was. Dave _________________________________________________________________ Plan your next US getaway to one of the super destinations here. http://special.msn.com/local/hotdestinations.armx From mia_mcdavid at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 18:54:10 2004 From: mia_mcdavid at comcast.net (Mia McDavid) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:54:10 -0600 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <004901c3f502$ac7cb6e0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> <004901c3f502$ac7cb6e0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> Message-ID: <40318252.1060003@comcast.net> I liked every single thing Emma Bull ever wrote. She's one of Steve's buddies, too . . . Gary Russell wrote: >I liked the Dean book very much. I'd probably recommend the LMB first, but >since you've read it, not so urgent. > >GJR > >----- Original Message ----- >From: >To: >Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 9:32 PM >Subject: What Should I Buy? > > > > >>This post is off-topic, but at least it's about books.... >> >>A month from now I plan on pre-ordering _Sethra Lavode_, and >>I need to spend $7 more to get free shipping, so I need to >>chose something cheap I really want to read. >> >>I thought I'd ask here for opinions, since several of you are >>on my Share the Love list, and there may be something here >>that you want too. If anyone else wants to be on that list, >>just say so (and everyone is welcome to put me on their >>list). >> >>My current choices: >> >>Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ >>Butcher, _Fool Moon_ >>Dean, _The Hidden Land_ >>Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ >> >>Unfortunately, the Bujold is the only one not in the middle >>of a series, and it's also the only one I've already read >>(that's not a coincidence), so I'm not in a hurry to get it. >> >>(I'll assume dd-b will recommend his wife's book and save him >>the trouble of posting.) >> >>Of course, I'll go through all this again in a couple months >>when I try to get free shipping for _A Hat Full of Sky_ (and >>I'll need $14 for that). >> >> >>--KG >> >> >> > > > > From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Feb 16 19:19:19 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 22:19:19 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <403181E7.9090909@micromuse.com> References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> <403181E7.9090909@micromuse.com> Message-ID: <131524D4-60F8-11D8-AAF8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Ken Gorelick On Feb 16, 2004, at 9:52 PM, Andrew Bailey wrote: > Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > >> This post is off-topic, but at least it's about books.... >> A month from now I plan on pre-ordering _Sethra Lavode_, and >> I need to spend $7 more to get free shipping, so I need to chose >> something cheap I really want to read. >> I thought I'd ask here for opinions, since several of you are >> on my Share the Love list, and there may be something here >> that you want too. If anyone else wants to be on that list, just say >> so (and everyone is welcome to put me on their list). >> My current choices: >> Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ >> Butcher, _Fool Moon_ >> Dean, _The Hidden Land_ >> Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ Unfortunately, the Bujold is the only >> one not in the middle >> of a series, and it's also the only one I've already read >> (that's not a coincidence), so I'm not in a hurry to get it. >> (I'll assume dd-b will recommend his wife's book and save him >> the trouble of posting.) >> Of course, I'll go through all this again in a couple months >> when I try to get free shipping for _A Hat Full of Sky_ (and >> I'll need $14 for that). > > Well, _The Confusion_ by Neal Stephenson comes out that month as well, > unfortunatly that is also a book 2 :( > > I would always recomend _The Scar_ by China Mi?ville if you haven't > read it yet ( and Perdido Street Station as well ) > > Andrew. >> --KG > I would hesitate to recommend SF/Fantasy to this august list, so I will throw in two of my favorite mystery writers--Anything by Cara Black or Sujata Massey. Cara's stories take place in Paris and are absolutely authentic reflections of the city (from one who lived there) while Sujata's take place in Tokyo and are wonderful reads. While you can read any of Cara's books, Murder in the Marais was her first and weakest. For Sujata, you should read them in order beginning with "The Salaryman's Wife". In a different genre, "My Year of Meats" is a great story about a woman who takes a job producing a weekly TV show for Japan, sponsored by the American Beef Council, called "My American Wife". Each week she finds a typical American family and shoots a show around them culminating with a meal based on beef. She gets a little jaded, and her stories get off topic...she also describes accurately some of the major health issues with American beef. From bryann at bryann.net Mon Feb 16 19:36:19 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:36:19 -0600 Subject: Flying Ships (was Reliability and POV) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > On a mostly-unrelated tangent, where are the flying ships? Think > > about it: > > Flying Ship vs Floating Castle, that's gotta have a high CQ (Cool > > Quotient)... > > > > Bryan > > You might think that, but I think that the responsible parties, to wit, > the Orca, would see it more like a fish out of water... > Ah, but might Flying Ships be the province of Hawklords and Athyra, and not Orca? Speaking of mostly-unrelated tangents, can dragons fly in Dragaera? I've yet to find a reference to a "dragon wing" (well, other than as part of the Imperial Palace) Bryan From bryann at bryann.net Mon Feb 16 19:44:14 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:44:14 -0600 Subject: Reliability and POV In-Reply-To: <13F2F630-6087-11D8-A689-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: > > On a mostly-unrelated tangent, where are the flying ships? Think > > about it: > > Flying Ship vs Floating Castle, that's gotta have a high CQ (Cool > > Quotient)... > > I believe the former sentence answers the latter question. If a > Floating Castle takes a century to cover 50 miles, even though a boat > is much lighter (take for example 1/1000th the mass), it would still > take over a month (or possibly two Dragaeran months) to cover the same > 50 miles. It might be formidable, but not a hard to hit target. D'oh, my memory is terrible. I just looked up the quote: Lord of Castle Black, pg 290 - "Can we move?" said Khaavren. "That is, Tazendra, can you cause this building to float in a certain direction?" "Only slowly," said Tazendra. "How slowly? That is, how long will it take us to reach Dzur Mountain?" "Five years, perhaps six." So, err, *blush*. I was only off by a factor of, uh, 20s if not 200s. As to the movement rate of the flying ship, I was thinking of a more traditional usage of sails... use magic to hover, sails to move. Speaking of which, I wonder if Morrolan could string up sails, or if Castle Black is ever buffeted by the winds? Like being in a very very (1 mile up) tall building... Bryan From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Mon Feb 16 18:54:58 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:54:58 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> References: <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040217025458.GC54485@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 10:03:40AM -0600, Mia McDavid wrote: > Not to worry. Dzurlord is synonymous with Dzur. There are no > Dzurcommoners. So would Dzur rebels be Dzursurpers? From warlord at dragon.com Mon Feb 16 20:49:47 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 23:49:47 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <20040217025458.GC54485@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20040216234337.0251ea40@pop.dragon.com> At 21:54 2/16/2004 -0500, Steve Simmons wrote: >On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 10:03:40AM -0600, Mia McDavid wrote: > > > Not to worry. Dzurlord is synonymous with Dzur. There are no > > Dzurcommoners. > >So would Dzur rebels be Dzursurpers? Definately. And their leader was Dzuripides. W "When I die, I want go out just like my grandfather, in his sleep, peaceful and quiet...not kicking and screaming like the other guys in his car" From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Feb 16 21:57:04 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 23:57:04 -0600 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> (Gaertk@aol.com's message of "Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:32:50 -0500") References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: Gaertk at aol.com writes: > My current choices: > > Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ > Butcher, _Fool Moon_ > Dean, _The Hidden Land_ > Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ > > Unfortunately, the Bujold is the only one not in the middle > of a series, and it's also the only one I've already read > (that's not a coincidence), so I'm not in a hurry to get it. > > (I'll assume dd-b will recommend his wife's book and save him > the trouble of posting.) Okay, taking that as read...the only other one on the list I've read is the Bujold. It's excellent. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Feb 16 21:57:46 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 23:57:46 -0600 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <40318252.1060003@comcast.net> (Mia McDavid's message of "Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:54:10 -0600") References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> <004901c3f502$ac7cb6e0$6401a8c0@bloor.phub.net.cable.rogers.com> <40318252.1060003@comcast.net> Message-ID: Mia McDavid writes: > I liked every single thing Emma Bull ever wrote. She's one of Steve's > buddies, too . . . Yes, but so is Pamela; and one of Pamela's books is already on the list of choices :-) -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From bio_phy at hotmail.com Mon Feb 16 21:40:26 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 23:40:26 -0600 Subject: What Should I Buy? Message-ID: >I liked every single thing Emma Bull ever wrote. She's one of Steve's >buddies, too . . . I'm not going to say anything other than there's a *world* of difference between _Freedom and Necessity_ and, say, _Falcon_. _________________________________________________________________ Find great local high-speed Internet access value at the MSN High-Speed Marketplace. http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200360ave/direct/01/ From matthew at infodancer.org Mon Feb 16 22:02:18 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 00:02:18 -0600 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <20040217060218.GN10286@infodancer.org> On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 11:57:04PM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Gaertk at aol.com writes: > > My current choices: > > Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ > > Butcher, _Fool Moon_ > > Dean, _The Hidden Land_ > > Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ > > Unfortunately, the Bujold is the only one not in the middle > > of a series, and it's also the only one I've already read > > (that's not a coincidence), so I'm not in a hurry to get it. > > (I'll assume dd-b will recommend his wife's book and save him > > the trouble of posting.) > Okay, taking that as read...the only other one on the list I've read > is the Bujold. It's excellent. I just finished reading the sequel, which is also excellent. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From jtrager at keyway.net Mon Feb 16 23:18:00 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (John Trager) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 23:18:00 -0800 Subject: Last gasp of techno-speak Message-ID: <200402170720.i1H7K7d8032935@mail.keyway.net> Edward Hahn wrote: From casey at the-bat.net Tue Feb 17 01:33:09 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 04:33:09 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <001301c3f539$0e7622b0$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> KG wrote > Of course, I'll go through all this again in a couple months > when I try to get free shipping for _A Hat Full of Sky_ (and > I'll need $14 for that). I've been considering Heinlein's long lost first novel, _For Us, The Living : A Comedy of Customs_, (~$18)though it seems to be a curiosity for the dedicated Heinlein reader. Still, I've read every scrap available of his fiction... The reviews indicate that it could be a bit preachy. I'd also recommend almost anything by James Lee Burke, if you're looking outside the f/sf genres. Gritty crime drama mostly set in the South. There are plenty of choices in massmarket editions that would meet the $7 range you're looking for. Casey From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Tue Feb 17 04:44:37 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 07:44:37 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0BA22F90-6147-11D8-97DD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Re: Vlad's relatively (to Dragaerans) early demise On Feb 16, 2004, at 8:36 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > Let's not be too sure of that. > > 1. Vlad is the reincarnation of a Dragaeran. > 2. Vlad is now the owner of a Great Weapon. > 3. This one is just my speculation: Vlad may be the son of a goddess. 4(?) He's a witch of some (perhaps growing) ability, and they have demonstrably longer lives. Ah! A Prime Bronze Angel (Noam Raphael Izenberg - keeping the halo polished) From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Tue Feb 17 06:10:58 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 06:10:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040217141058.54374.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> Possible Spoiler! * * * * * * * * > [1] Vlad mouths off to a Hawklord in /Jhereg/, and I > find myself > wondering if it was none other than Paarfi of > Roundwood. Of course, > there are probably many Hawklords; there's no reason > to think it was > Paarfi. And come to think of it, we've never seen > anything to > indicate Paarfi's rank, have we? > I would really like to see Paarfi give a description of Vlad in one of his histories. I remember that Khaavren was not that impressed with him in Teckla. Of course giving two points of view of the same event might reveal too much of the story at once. (Or give us enough to argue about for years to come). Perhaps now that Vlad's got a Jenoine-Jabber of his own, Paarfi will sit up an take notice... Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Tue Feb 17 06:25:17 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 09:25:17 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20040216234337.0251ea40@pop.dragon.com> References: <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> <5.1.0.14.2.20040216234337.0251ea40@pop.dragon.com> Message-ID: <20040217142517.GC56103@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 11:49:47PM -0500, Warlord wrote: > At 21:54 2/16/2004 -0500, Steve Simmons wrote: > >So would Dzur rebels be Dzursurpers? > Definately. And their leader was Dzuripides. Ick! I'd dzurt rather than fight for him. -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Tue Feb 17 06:22:48 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 09:22:48 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <001301c3f539$0e7622b0$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> <001301c3f539$0e7622b0$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> Message-ID: <20040217142248.GA56103@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 04:33:09AM -0500, Casey Rousseau wrote: > I'd also recommend almost anything by James Lee Burke, if you're looking > outside the f/sf genres. Gritty crime drama mostly set in the South. There > are plenty of choices in massmarket editions that would meet the $7 range > you're looking for. I did particularly like 'In The Electric Mists With The Confederate Dead', which I bought because of the title. It sent me off on a kick of reading his Dave Robicheaux novels, all of which had just been reprinted. That turned out to be a bit of a mistake, as the descriptive passages sure started to sound repetitive. That's not to say they're not *good* descriptive passages; they make you feel like you've actually lived in New Orleans and rural Louisiana. But between that and the fact that there are just *too many* odd things that happened to Robicheaux, reading them close together wasn't a good idea. But that's often true of any long genre series. His Montana novels are also good. There aren't as many, so the themes and passages aren't quite so crowded. the other Steve -- "I try not to sound old and cynical, but it's hard to do that when you're old and cynical." -me From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Tue Feb 17 06:30:29 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 09:30:29 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <20040217141058.54374.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040217141058.54374.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Feb 17, 2004, at 9:10 AM, Kenneth Stone wrote: > Possible Spoiler! (Issola) > * > * > * > * > * > * > * > * > > Perhaps now that Vlad's got a Jenoine-Jabber of his > own, Paarfi will sit up an take notice... I don't know if Vlad's going to want to publicize that fact. He's got a lot less to fear nowadays - conventionally anyway. I would imagine that an Easterner (no matter his reincarnationary lineage) bearing a Great Weapon would be a major affront to no small number of Dragons, Dzurs, and others. If it became widely known, Vlad would probably have to go through quite a number of nasty duels to convince the population that they couldn't just 'make things right' by killing him and taking Teldra. Help! I'm an Orange Zebra! (Noam Raphael Izenberg) From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Tue Feb 17 06:43:34 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 06:43:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <4C8AB87B.61FA7849.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <20040217144334.15123.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> --- Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > Kenneth Gorelick writes: > > [Vlad son of a goddess?] > > > Only in her own mind! Remember, his mother died > when he was > > young. I suspect his father would have remembered > shtupping > > a REAL goddess... > > _Taltos_ page 4: > "My father kept changing his story, so I don't know > if she > died of if she left him" > > > --KG That sounds kinda like the confusion of Verra and the Morganti dagger that was to "Prevent her from manifesting herself" somewhere. Dead/left but still around... Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Tue Feb 17 06:42:00 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 09:42:00 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <20040217142517.GC56103@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> <5.1.0.14.2.20040216234337.0251ea40@pop.dragon.com> <20040217142517.GC56103@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <40322838.9070708@earthlink.net> Steve Simmons wrote: >On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 11:49:47PM -0500, Warlord wrote: > > > >>At 21:54 2/16/2004 -0500, Steve Simmons wrote: >> >> > > > >>>So would Dzur rebels be Dzursurpers? >>> >>> > > > >>Definately. And their leader was Dzuripides. >> >> > >Ick! I'd dzurt rather than fight for him. > > I wouldn't expect to dzurvive very long after that. I hear he hunts down dzurters. Jose -- Jose Marquez \ Cthulhu 2004 jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ Why vote for http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ the lesser evil? From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Tue Feb 17 07:02:49 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:02:49 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <40322838.9070708@earthlink.net> References: <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> <6.0.0.22.2.20040216095211.02cf3bb0@pop.east.cox.net> <4030E9DC.2020604@comcast.net> <5.1.0.14.2.20040216234337.0251ea40@pop.dragon.com> <20040217142517.GC56103@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> <40322838.9070708@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <5A2BBF33-615A-11D8-97DD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 17, 2004, at 9:42 AM, Jose Marquez wrote: > Steve Simmons wrote: >> On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 11:49:47PM -0500, Warlord wrote: >>> At 21:54 2/16/2004 -0500, Steve Simmons wrote: >>>> So would Dzur rebels be Dzursurpers? >>> Definately. And their leader was Dzuripides. >> Ick! I'd dzurt rather than fight for him. > I wouldn't expect to dzurvive very long after that. I hear he hunts > down dzurters. Oy! How long are we going to let this Dragon? Are we Dzurtain we want to go down this path? I have Athyra that there's fun to be had with all the Houses, but won't Hawk it too loudly - there's always the chance if Yending up on the wrong end of a Morganti dagger - and that would do more than just Teckla my ribs. Someone make it stop! As David Lee Roth says.. I'm just a Jhegaala... Horrible Gaze'n Apeman (Noam Raphael Izenberg - yes, I'm lookin' at _you_) From warlord at dragon.com Tue Feb 17 07:46:31 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 10:46:31 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <5A2BBF33-615A-11D8-97DD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Noam Izenberg [mailto:noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu] > Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 10:03 AM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Really, really, really stupid question > > > On Feb 17, 2004, at 9:42 AM, Jose Marquez wrote: > > Steve Simmons wrote: > >> On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 11:49:47PM -0500, Warlord wrote: > >>> At 21:54 2/16/2004 -0500, Steve Simmons wrote: > >>>> So would Dzur rebels be Dzursurpers? > >>> Definately. And their leader was Dzuripides. > >> Ick! I'd dzurt rather than fight for him. > > I wouldn't expect to dzurvive very long after that. I hear he hunts > > down dzurters. > > Oy! How long are we going to let this Dragon? Are we Dzurtain > we want to go down this path? I have Athyra that there's fun to > be had with all the Houses, but won't Hawk it too loudly - there's > always the chance if Yending up on the wrong end of a Morganti > dagger - and that would do more than just Teckla my ribs. > > Someone make it stop! > > As David Lee Roth says.. I'm just a Jhegaala... > Did jhereg this thread to veera way like this ? W Ahh! My ears! Zee beer muffs, zey do nothing! From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Tue Feb 17 08:16:00 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 11:16:00 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <93800571-6164-11D8-97DD-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 17, 2004, at 10:46 AM, Warlord wrote: >> On Feb 17, 2004, at 9:42 AM, Jose Marquez wrote: >>> Steve Simmons wrote: >>>> On Mon, Feb 16, 2004 at 11:49:47PM -0500, Warlord wrote: >>>>> At 21:54 2/16/2004 -0500, Steve Simmons wrote: >>>>>> So would Dzur rebels be Dzursurpers? >>>>> Definately. And their leader was Dzuripides. >>>> Ick! I'd dzurt rather than fight for him. >>> I wouldn't expect to dzurvive very long after that. I hear he hunts >>> down dzurters. >> >> Oy! How long are we going to let this Dragon? Are we Dzurtain >> we want to go down this path? I have Athyra that there's fun to >> be had with all the Houses, but won't Hawk it too loudly - there's >> always the chance if Yending up on the wrong end of a Morganti >> dagger - and that would do more than just Teckla my ribs. >> As David Lee Roth says.. I'm just a Jhegaala... > Did jhereg this thread to veera way like this ? We're all going to end up in the Issola-tion ward. Orcan we all get put in to one big padded pun -er- pen? I know, I know I hear you cry "Ioriching way, way too far for these!" I would be Lyorning if I said I disagreed with you. Last if not Vallista - T'-t'-T'-t' Tiassa'll Folks! Eh! Noble Prize Anagram (Noam Raphael Izenberg - award winning anagrams) From mia_mcdavid at comcast.net Tue Feb 17 09:29:20 2004 From: mia_mcdavid at comcast.net (Mia McDavid) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 11:29:20 -0600 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40324F70.90507@comcast.net> Johne Cook wrote: > > I'm not going to say anything other than there's a *world* of > difference between _Freedom and Necessity_ and, say, _Falcon_ Agreed. Emma didn't write that one alone. It was definitely worth strug--I mean, reading, but a *very* different oeuvre. Mia From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Feb 17 10:11:32 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 12:11:32 -0600 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <001301c3f539$0e7622b0$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> (Casey Rousseau's message of "Tue, 17 Feb 2004 04:33:09 -0500") References: <001301c3f539$0e7622b0$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> Message-ID: "Casey Rousseau" writes: > KG wrote >> Of course, I'll go through all this again in a couple months >> when I try to get free shipping for _A Hat Full of Sky_ (and >> I'll need $14 for that). > > I've been considering Heinlein's long lost first novel, _For Us, The Living > : A Comedy of Customs_, (~$18)though it seems to be a curiosity for the > dedicated Heinlein reader. Still, I've read every scrap available of his > fiction... The reviews indicate that it could be a bit preachy. I'd say it's very interesting *for scholars*. Many of us are amateur scholars of SF in general and Heinlein in particular. I found it very interesting. I don't think it has very much interest just as a book to read. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From mr1 at rcosta.com Tue Feb 17 12:35:57 2004 From: mr1 at rcosta.com (Michele Riccio) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:35:57 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <403234DD.16474.158DAA5@localhost> I was actually planning on buying "The Hidden Land"..so if you choose that, please share me some love ;-) M mr1 at rcosta.com On 16 Feb 2004 at 21:32, Gaertk at aol.com wrote > This post is off-topic, but at least it's about books.... > > A month from now I plan on pre-ordering _Sethra Lavode_, and > I need to spend $7 more to get free shipping, so I need to > chose something cheap I really want to read. > > I thought I'd ask here for opinions, since several of you are > on my Share the Love list, and there may be something here > that you want too. If anyone else wants to be on that list, > just say so (and everyone is welcome to put me on their > list). > > My current choices: > > Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ > Butcher, _Fool Moon_ > Dean, _The Hidden Land_ > Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ > > Unfortunately, the Bujold is the only one not in the middle > of a series, and it's also the only one I've already read > (that's not a coincidence), so I'm not in a hurry to get it. > > (I'll assume dd-b will recommend his wife's book and save him > the trouble of posting.) > > Of course, I'll go through all this again in a couple months > when I try to get free shipping for _A Hat Full of Sky_ (and > I'll need $14 for that). > > > --KG > Michele Riccio mr1 at rcosta.com From jazzfish at softhome.net Tue Feb 17 13:18:08 2004 From: jazzfish at softhome.net (Tucker) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 16:18:08 -0500 Subject: Agyar *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <20031121203430.GF3774@infodancer.org> References: <1ec85a1ef216.1ef2161ec85a@gwu.edu> <1ec85a1ef216.1ef2161ec85a@gwu.edu> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20040217161243.02b734e0@pro.softhome.net> (Teach me to let list mail pile up for months at a time. Sheesh.) First: anyone know if the noiminally forthcoming Orb edition will use the same excellent cover art? Now, I'm AFB at the moment, but I do seem to remember a few points. To wit: At 03:34 PM 11/21/2003, Matthew Hunter wrote: > > This topic will naturally have spoilers for those who haven't > > read Agyar. You have been warned... (white space follows) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >He doesn't seem to require a coffin filled with his "home >earth" or grave dirt. Susan (in the epilogue) mentions a requirement to this effect. >I don't recall whether or not he shows up in mirrors. He doesn't. Towards the end he mentions that he could 'come out' to Susan just by handing her a mirror and asking her "What's wrong with this picture?" Don't recall if it had to be a silvered mirror or not, though. >He's not blatantly immortal but doesn't mention his age, so >that's unknown. For some reason I think he met Kellem in the early-to-mid-1800s. I might have just made that up, though. ---- "I can't think of much worse than spending a lifetime doing something that isn't what you want to do." --Neil Gaiman, 2003-05-18 From bonham15 at cox.net Tue Feb 17 13:49:48 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:49:48 -0600 Subject: What Should I Buy? References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> <403181E7.9090909@micromuse.com> <131524D4-60F8-11D8-AAF8-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <000b01c3f59f$f71e9e50$1e1d6344@user79dn2jmjai> >> Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ >> Butcher, _Fool Moon_ >> Dean, _The Hidden Land_ >> Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ Unfortunately, the Bujold is the only >> one not in the middle >> of a series, and it's also the only one I've already read >> (that's not a coincidence), so I'm not in a hurry to get it. >> (I'll assume dd-b will recommend his wife's book and save him >> the trouble of posting.) >> Of course, I'll go through all this again in a couple months >> when I try to get free shipping for _A Hat Full of Sky_ (and >> I'll need $14 for that). > i've always favored glen cook's black company series myself and george r.r. martin's current series a song of fire and ice starting with 'a game of thrones' is shaping up thus far to be a winner. he's not afraid to kill off stuff.. andy From dgf at dd-b.net Tue Feb 17 15:17:02 2004 From: dgf at dd-b.net (dgf at dd-b.net) Date: 17 Feb 2004 23:17:02 -0000 Subject: Dragaera subscriber list Message-ID: <20040217231702.11629.qmail@dd-b.net> abailey (at) micromuse.com (email) Andrew Bailey acwest-dragaera (at) craigwest.net (email) "A. 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Khead" umbraenoctis (at) hotmail.com (email) "James Griffin" unhatched (at) hotmail.com (email) "Denis Richard" unitcancellation (at) hotmail.com (email) "Alex Nixon" usagigoya (at) hotmail.com (email) "Steve Hubbell" vaklam (at) comcast.net (email) Brian Cooksey valerie (at) drizzle.com (email) veate (at) yahoo.com (digest) "Ms. Helle" vendersleighc (at) yahoo.com (email) Ven vidroth (at) hotmail.com (digest) "Chris Bisanar" vikipants (at) hotmail.com (email) "robert bokkon" vtaltos (at) earthlink.net (email) "Malcolm" walshm (at) ipfw.edu (email) "Matthew Walsh" warbi (at) warbi.net (email) "warbi" warlord (at) dragon.com (email) "Warlord" wayne.wagenaar (at) rogers.com (email) Wayne Wagenaar willm (at) emailme.com.au (email) "Will Marshall" wks (at) worldpath.net (email) Bill Stewart wmo+dragaera (at) rebma.pro-ns.net (email) "Bill O'Hanlon" xmasberry (at) mail.com (email) "holly christmas" yaga (at) berkano.pair.com (email) yaga (at) berkano.pair.com yhcrana13 (at) hotmail.com (email) "A. Nonymous" yukio_toko (at) yahoo.com (email) yukiotoko imp-thing zaphod (at) charter.net (email) "Greg Schwartz" zarkon (at) illrepute.org (email) John Klein From Gaertk at aol.com Tue Feb 17 16:10:55 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 19:10:55 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? Message-ID: <0588E15F.58952C94.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/16/2004 9:52:23 PM Eastern Standard Time, Andrew Bailey writes: > Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > >> Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ >> Butcher, _Fool Moon_ >> Dean, _The Hidden Land_ >> Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ >> > Well, _The Confusion_ by Neal Stephenson comes out that > month as well, unfortunatly that is also a book 2 :( > > I would always recomend _The Scar_ by China Mi?ville if you > haven't read it yet ( and Perdido Street Station as well ) I knew I forgot something in my original post: "Please limit your recommendations to the books listed." I can't really afford to pay new book prices for authors I haven't tried before. And I only buy hardcovers of Brust and Pratchett (Erikson would be on the list too if Tor was doing simultanious releases of the new books, but they aren't). And from what I've heard about Stephenson and Mieville, I'm not in their target audiences. --KG From Gaertk at aol.com Tue Feb 17 16:25:38 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 19:25:38 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? Message-ID: <7B18465B.6C3720A9.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/17/2004 3:35:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Michele Riccio" writes: > I was actually planning on buying "The Hidden Land"..so if > you choose that, please share me some love ;-) I think we have a winner. --KG From dar at horusinc.com Tue Feb 17 16:42:48 2004 From: dar at horusinc.com (David Rodemaker) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 18:42:48 -0600 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Perhaps now that Vlad's got a Jenoine-Jabber of his > > own, Paarfi will sit up an take notice... > > I don't know if Vlad's going to want to publicize that fact. > He's got a lot less to fear nowadays - conventionally anyway. > I would imagine that an Easterner (no matter his reincarnationary > lineage) bearing a Great Weapon would be a major affront to > no small number of Dragons, Dzurs, and others. If it became > widely known, Vlad would probably have to go through quite > a number of nasty duels to convince the population that they > couldn't just 'make things right' by killing him and taking Teldra. I think you may be making an assumption (though not necessarily an untrue one) that Dragerean's would have a 'issue' with an Easterner having a GW. For all we know, and there's a certain amount of evidence that supports this, Dragerean's may very well think it's *weird* and may even think that there's a *problem* but that's not the same as saying "Easterner + GW = Bad", they may be just as likely or more likely to say "[Former Jhereg and Friend of Setha & Crew (Now Imperial Count? IIRC)] + GW = Possible Problem" David From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 17 17:03:59 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 17:03:59 -0800 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55504F4C-61AE-11D8-AD48-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> On Feb 17, 2004, at 4:42 PM, David Rodemaker wrote: >>> Perhaps now that Vlad's got a Jenoine-Jabber of his >>> own, Paarfi will sit up an take notice... >> >> I don't know if Vlad's going to want to publicize that fact. >> He's got a lot less to fear nowadays - conventionally anyway. >> I would imagine that an Easterner (no matter his reincarnationary >> lineage) bearing a Great Weapon would be a major affront to >> no small number of Dragons, Dzurs, and others. If it became >> widely known, Vlad would probably have to go through quite >> a number of nasty duels to convince the population that they >> couldn't just 'make things right' by killing him and taking Teldra. > > I think you may be making an assumption (though not necessarily an > untrue > one) that Dragerean's would have a 'issue' with an Easterner having a > GW. > For all we know, and there's a certain amount of evidence that supports > this, Dragerean's may very well think it's *weird* and may even think > that > there's a *problem* but that's not the same as saying "Easterner + GW = > Bad", they may be just as likely or more likely to say "[Former Jhereg > and > Friend of Setha & Crew (Now Imperial Count? IIRC)] + GW = Possible > Problem" > > David I'd be inclined to agree here. I mean, certainly there's a high degree of racism, but a possible outcome is maybe a bit of grudging respect for Vlad from Dragereans. Also, they might recognize him as a possible problem, but if someone you knew about had a Great Weapon called "Godslayer", would you to make your criticism too vocal, notwithstanding them being an Easterner? -Jeff From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 17 17:13:29 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 17:13:29 -0800 (PST) Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, David Rodemaker wrote: > > > Perhaps now that Vlad's got a Jenoine-Jabber of his > > > own, Paarfi will sit up an take notice... > > > > I don't know if Vlad's going to want to publicize that fact. > > He's got a lot less to fear nowadays - conventionally anyway. > > I would imagine that an Easterner (no matter his reincarnationary > > lineage) bearing a Great Weapon would be a major affront to > > no small number of Dragons, Dzurs, and others. If it became > > widely known, Vlad would probably have to go through quite > > a number of nasty duels to convince the population that they > > couldn't just 'make things right' by killing him and taking Teldra. > > I think you may be making an assumption (though not necessarily an untrue > one) that Dragerean's would have a 'issue' with an Easterner having a GW. > For all we know, and there's a certain amount of evidence that supports > this, Dragerean's may very well think it's *weird* and may even think that > there's a *problem* but that's not the same as saying "Easterner + GW = > Bad", they may be just as likely or more likely to say "[Former Jhereg and > Friend of Setha & Crew (Now Imperial Count? IIRC)] + GW = Possible Problem" Recall Adron's reaction at the end of _TPG_ to seeing an Easterner with a morganti blade... From lister at insaneninjahero.com Tue Feb 17 17:21:23 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 17:21:23 -0800 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: <55504F4C-61AE-11D8-AD48-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <55504F4C-61AE-11D8-AD48-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4032BE13.9090609@insaneninjahero.com> Jeffrey Kiok wrote: >>>> Perhaps now that Vlad's got a Jenoine-Jabber of his >>>> own, Paarfi will sit up an take notice... >>> >>> >>> I don't know if Vlad's going to want to publicize that fact. >>> He's got a lot less to fear nowadays - conventionally anyway. >>> I would imagine that an Easterner (no matter his reincarnationary >>> lineage) bearing a Great Weapon would be a major affront to >>> no small number of Dragons, Dzurs, and others. If it became >>> widely known, Vlad would probably have to go through quite >>> a number of nasty duels to convince the population that they >>> couldn't just 'make things right' by killing him and taking Teldra. >> >> >> I think you may be making an assumption (though not necessarily an untrue >> one) that Dragerean's would have a 'issue' with an Easterner having a GW. >> For all we know, and there's a certain amount of evidence that supports >> this, Dragerean's may very well think it's *weird* and may even think >> that >> there's a *problem* but that's not the same as saying "Easterner + GW = >> Bad", they may be just as likely or more likely to say "[Former Jhereg >> and >> Friend of Setha & Crew (Now Imperial Count? IIRC)] + GW = Possible >> Problem" > > I'd be inclined to agree here. I mean, certainly there's a high degree > of racism, but a possible outcome is maybe a bit of grudging respect for > Vlad from Dragereans. Also, they might recognize him as a possible > problem, but if someone you knew about had a Great Weapon called > "Godslayer", would you to make your criticism too vocal, notwithstanding > them being an Easterner? > > -Jeff I would say that lumping all Dragaerans together in this kind of mishmash might be the most important mistake. If Baritt were around, I don't doubt that he'd come up with a plan to remove Lady Teldra from Vlad's possession. On the other hand, one supposes that Kragar is going to think it is pretty cool that he knows someone with a GW ... while at the same time wanting Vlad to stay far away as much as possible ;) Derrill From jamesandmary.burbidge at sympatico.ca Tue Feb 17 18:50:15 2004 From: jamesandmary.burbidge at sympatico.ca (James Burbidge) Date: 17 Feb 2004 21:50:15 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <4D7EB563.54F59711.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <1077072616.1082.5.camel@ilmarin> On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 21:32, Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > This post is off-topic, but at least it's about books.... > > A month from now I plan on pre-ordering _Sethra Lavode_, and > I need to spend $7 more to get free shipping, so I need to > chose something cheap I really want to read. > > I thought I'd ask here for opinions, since several of you are > on my Share the Love list, and there may be something here > that you want too. If anyone else wants to be on that list, > just say so (and everyone is welcome to put me on their > list). > > My current choices: > > Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ > Butcher, _Fool Moon_ > Dean, _The Hidden Land_ > Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ > I would recommend _The Hidden Land_, but a) I am assuming that you have read _The Secret Country_ (if not, read it first) and b) I would urge you not to get _The Hidden Land_ unless you also follow it up immediately with _The Whim of the Dragon_. From stikjok at hotmail.com Tue Feb 17 20:17:58 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 04:17:58 +0000 Subject: Issola Message-ID: I have to admit it... I've read and reread this novel more than any others by Brust save _To reign in Hell_. I love books where there is major personal growth by characters I love... and you have to admit that Vlads' life is changed more here than in any since he lost his wife and his career. And THAT book is a downer. Or it may just be me. I was having marital problems at the time I was reading _Teckla_ and may have just been transfering. Anyway, _Issola_ has an honored place next to my bed with few other books since I can pick it up, open it to anywhere, and just start reading anywhere. Dave P.S. Do YOU have any books like that? _________________________________________________________________ Stay informed on Election 2004 and the race to Super Tuesday. http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx From michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com Tue Feb 17 21:13:32 2004 From: michaelangelo at tripp-russo.com (Michael Angelo Tripp-Russo) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 23:13:32 -0600 Subject: Issola References: Message-ID: <4032F47C.2060805@tripp-russo.com> > I have to admit it... I've read and reread this novel more than any > others by Brust That's likely because it is really F**ing good. It opened more doors than it closed for Vlad's future and the series could go basically anywhere; there are some obvious places but that means _absolutely_ nothing. From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Tue Feb 17 23:14:53 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 23:14:53 -0800 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 18:42:48 -0600, you wrote: >> > Perhaps now that Vlad's got a Jenoine-Jabber of his >> > own, Paarfi will sit up an take notice... >> >> I don't know if Vlad's going to want to publicize that fact. >> He's got a lot less to fear nowadays - conventionally anyway. >> I would imagine that an Easterner (no matter his reincarnationary >> lineage) bearing a Great Weapon would be a major affront to >> no small number of Dragons, Dzurs, and others. If it became >> widely known, Vlad would probably have to go through quite >> a number of nasty duels to convince the population that they >> couldn't just 'make things right' by killing him and taking Teldra. > >I think you may be making an assumption (though not necessarily an untrue >one) that Dragerean's would have a 'issue' with an Easterner having a GW. >For all we know, and there's a certain amount of evidence that supports >this, Dragerean's may very well think it's *weird* and may even think that >there's a *problem* but that's not the same as saying "Easterner + GW = >Bad", they may be just as likely or more likely to say "[Former Jhereg and >Friend of Setha & Crew (Now Imperial Count? IIRC)] + GW = Possible Problem" > >David > Also, how many Dragaerans are "in the know" as to who, exactly, has a Great Weapon? From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 17 23:45:16 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 23:45:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, lazarus wrote: > Also, how many Dragaerans are "in the know" as to who, exactly, has a > Great Weapon? I believe Aliera and Morrolan wear theirs openly. Sethra, too, but then she's a bit legendary. Beyond that, afaik there weren't any others who knew who they are before Vlad. If that's the case, and there _are_ GWs floating around unowned, can't A just have Pathfinder lead her to them? (I assume there aren't any others in use because, well, we would have heard about it by now, which I guess is why Zungaron is described as clueless on pg 41 [hc] of _Issola_. Sethra is kind of vague on this point - perhaps because SKZB wants flexibility.) If there are 17, perhaps the gods have the rest (or destroyed them). Or perhaps the Serioli. Or the J (though that seems unlikely). Anyway, the point is well-taken that the list of GW holders is likely a state secret. From casca913 at gbronline.com Wed Feb 18 04:24:33 2004 From: casca913 at gbronline.com (Charlie Smith) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 06:24:33 -0600 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question References: Message-ID: <005401c3f61a$50ed56e0$78d2fdd8@pentium4> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Rodemaker" To: "'Noam Izenberg'" ; Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 6:42 PM Subject: RE: Really, really, really stupid question > > > Perhaps now that Vlad's got a Jenoine-Jabber of his > > > own, Paarfi will sit up an take notice... > > > > I don't know if Vlad's going to want to publicize that fact. > > He's got a lot less to fear nowadays - conventionally anyway. > > I would imagine that an Easterner (no matter his reincarnationary > > lineage) bearing a Great Weapon would be a major affront to > > no small number of Dragons, Dzurs, and others. If it became > > widely known, Vlad would probably have to go through quite > > a number of nasty duels to convince the population that they > > couldn't just 'make things right' by killing him and taking Teldra. > > I think you may be making an assumption (though not necessarily an untrue > one) that Dragerean's would have a 'issue' with an Easterner having a GW. Unless they were Sethra the Younger. It would be funny, although highly unlikely, to see Vlad go on an Eastern kick for awhile as he mentioned. From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Wed Feb 18 06:24:25 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 06:24:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040218142425.33844.qmail@web21402.mail.yahoo.com> > Recall Adron's reaction at the end of _TPG_ to > seeing an Easterner with a > morganti blade... Good point. It seems that by Dragon (the room full of Morganti weapons) that perceptions may have switched. Easterners (or maybe just Vlad, or maybe just ones over in the Empire) have a superstitious dread of Morganti weapons that don't seem to bother the Dragaerians so much at that point. I get the feeling that Morganti weapons arn't as commonplace during _TPG_ as they are now. Perhaps the Jhereg were still on the mend from the disaster and >from the last Dragon-Jhereg war. An interesting note: Recall that to be found with a Morganti blade (or is it just to commit assassination by M-blade?) is punishable by death. It seems that GW's are an allowed exception, but I bet Vlad would have to pull it out every five minutes to show the birds that it's a Great Weapon. "Say hello to my little friend!" (Recall that Vlad did not know Morrolan's blade was a GW until he whipped it out, but he knew it was Morganti inside the sheath.) Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Wed Feb 18 06:35:04 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 06:35:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040218143504.57681.qmail@web21411.mail.yahoo.com> > P.S. Do YOU have any books like that? Is that "you" plural? We use "ya'll" down here. But sure: Jhereg, Yendi, ... :-) But seriously: Louis L'Amour: The Walking Drum Last of the Breed Jean M. Auel: Valley of the Horses Mammoth Hunters Plains of Passage Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From Gaertk at aol.com Wed Feb 18 07:28:26 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:28:26 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? Message-ID: <4A629A37.0D047D55.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/16/2004 9:32:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, I wrote: > This post is off-topic, but at least it's about books.... > > A month from now I plan on pre-ordering _Sethra Lavode_, > and I need to spend $7 more to get free shipping, so I need > to chose something cheap I really want to read. > > My current choices: > > Butcher, _Fool Moon_ > Dean, _The Hidden Land_ > Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ I've changed my mind, and decided to take Bujold off the list. I liked it (and the sequel, and will read the third one), but I'm not sure if I'll be re-reading it any time soon, so it's not important to have my own copy. And I just remembered a bunch of other books that I *am* planning on re-reading before the end of the year: Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. So far I only have the first book, last book, and _Unauthorized Autobiography_, so add to the list: _The Reptile Room_ _The Wide Window_ _The Miserable Mill_ _The Austere Academy_ _The Ersatz Elevator_ _The Vile Village_ _The Hostile Hospital_ and _The Carnivorous Carnival_ Anyone planning on buying any of these? --KG From bio_phy at hotmail.com Wed Feb 18 07:25:13 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 09:25:13 -0600 Subject: Issola Message-ID: >From: Kenneth Stone >But seriously: > >Louis L'Amour: >The Walking Drum One of the great regrets of my life (from a strictly literary standpoint) is that I know I that Louis L'Amour will never finish his _Walking Drum_ series. I vehemently hope that I will live long enough to see the completion of the Vlad novels. _________________________________________________________________ Watch high-quality video with fast playback at MSN Video. Free! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200365ave/direct/01/ From mr1 at rcosta.com Wed Feb 18 07:23:44 2004 From: mr1 at rcosta.com (Michele Riccio) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:23:44 -0500 Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <7B18465B.6C3720A9.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <40333D30.5642.3C302C@localhost> Yeah!!!! I win!!! And I get to buy a book! M On 17 Feb 2004 at 19:25, Gaertk at aol.com wrote > In a message dated 2/17/2004 3:35:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, > "Michele Riccio" writes: > > > I was actually planning on buying "The Hidden Land"..so if > > you choose that, please share me some love ;-) > > I think we have a winner. > > > --KG > Michele Riccio mr1 at rcosta.com From feetalsjeez at yahoo.com Wed Feb 18 08:47:13 2004 From: feetalsjeez at yahoo.com (Tim Owen) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 08:47:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Flying Ships (was Reliability and POV) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040218164713.42003.qmail@web40207.mail.yahoo.com> >Speaking of mostly-unrelated tangents, can dragons fly in Dragaera? I've >yet to find a reference to a "dragon wing" (well, other than as part of the >Imperial Palace) Well, "the Dragon" in Issola certainly flew. Of course that "Dragon" was more God than Dragaeran fauna. I seem to recall reading somewhere (Brokedown Palace maybe) a reference to a dragon going through it's 1st molting and subsequently not having fully functional wings yet. -Tim --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Feb 18 10:15:07 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:15:07 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question Message-ID: <61AEE986-623E-11D8-B1D0-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> > I would say that lumping all Dragaerans together in this kind of > mishmash might be the most important mistake. If Baritt were around, I > don't doubt that he'd come up with a plan to remove Lady Teldra from > Vlad's possession. On the other hand, one supposes that Kragar is going > to think it is pretty cool that he knows someone with a GW ... while at > the same time wanting Vlad to stay far away as much as possible ;) I agree. I wasn't saying that _everyone_ would be lining up for the chance to take Godslayer from the Easterner, but It would be foolish to think that _no one_ would, given the mentality of _some_ Dragons and Dzur and _some_ particularly anti-Easterner elements of Dragaeran society. Vlad is usually not foolish in that kind of way, so would probably want to keep even the existence of a _new_ Great Weapon as mum as reasonable. Bronze Enigma (Noam Izenberg) From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Wed Feb 18 10:25:01 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:25:01 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 17, 2004, at 11:17 PM, Dave Cooper wrote: > I have to admit it... I've read and reread this novel more than any > others by Brust save _To reign in Hell_. I love books where there is > major personal growth by characters I love... and you have to admit > that Vlads' life is changed more here than in any since he lost his > wife and his career. And THAT book is a downer. I agree with this. Like it or not, Vlad's become a major Playa' now. > Anyway, _Issola_ has an honored place next to my bed with few other > books since I can pick it up, open it to anywhere, and just start > reading anywhere. Issola is still a relatively recent read for me, but I've read the critical scene probably four times. The second time I actually got choked up, and books just don't do that to me. Issola is certainly near if not at the top of my list of Vlad novels. But now I'm concerned - are we going to have three-way Teldra-Vlad-Loiosh mental discussions now? I don't think Vlad's going to be able to say "shut up, Teldra." Whatever it turns out to be, I'm looking forward to finding out. Zone Miner Garb (what Noam R. Izenberg wears in the Zone MInes) From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Feb 18 10:39:20 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:39:20 -0800 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:25:01 -0500, you wrote: > >But now I'm concerned - are we going to have three-way >Teldra-Vlad-Loiosh mental discussions now? I don't think Vlad's going >to be able to say "shut up, Teldra." Whatever it turns out to be, I'm >looking forward to finding out. > I don't think Teldra exists as a separate cogent sentience anymore, so much as she exists as an influence. In other words, she won't be speaking to Vlad, but rather be more like Vlad's conscience, that quiet little voice in the back of his mind. From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Wed Feb 18 11:06:46 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:06:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Issola Message-ID: <200402181906.i1IJ6kg15924@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> > I don't think Teldra exists as a separate cogent sentience anymore, so > much as she exists as an influence. In other words, she won't be > speaking to Vlad, but rather be more like Vlad's conscience, that > quiet little voice in the back of his mind. Oh, great. Like he doesn't have enough little voices in the back of his mind.... Poor guy's going to find himself in the Northport Asylum for the Criminaly Wacky, wearing a nice, long-sleeved jacket. Poor Vlad.... :) Chris "It's tough for fetishists to be Marxists, since many of us like our chains." ~David Alt From warlord at dragon.com Wed Feb 18 10:59:24 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:59:24 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: lazarus [mailto:lazarus33pjf at cox.net] > Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 1:39 PM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Issola > > > On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:25:01 -0500, you wrote: > > > > >But now I'm concerned - are we going to have three-way > >Teldra-Vlad-Loiosh mental discussions now? I don't think Vlad's going > >to be able to say "shut up, Teldra." Whatever it turns out to be, I'm > >looking forward to finding out. > > > > I don't think Teldra exists as a separate cogent sentience anymore, so > much as she exists as an influence. In other words, she won't be > speaking to Vlad, but rather be more like Vlad's conscience, that > quiet little voice in the back of his mind. > > I hope that you are incorrect in this opinion. I've been looking forward to the "waking up" since I read the line. At least she'll be able to hear Loiosh' jokes now. :) W "Bones! It's Pirate Roberts!" "He's Dread, Jim." From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Wed Feb 18 11:14:46 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:14:46 -0800 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <78e730166ucp5ngcrq93vlfvq8dctuav2a@4ax.com> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:59:24 -0500, you wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: lazarus [mailto:lazarus33pjf at cox.net] >> Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 1:39 PM >> To: dragaera at dragaera.info >> Subject: Re: Issola >> >> >> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:25:01 -0500, you wrote: >> >> > >> >But now I'm concerned - are we going to have three-way >> >Teldra-Vlad-Loiosh mental discussions now? I don't think Vlad's going >> >to be able to say "shut up, Teldra." Whatever it turns out to be, I'm >> >looking forward to finding out. >> > >> >> I don't think Teldra exists as a separate cogent sentience anymore, so >> much as she exists as an influence. In other words, she won't be >> speaking to Vlad, but rather be more like Vlad's conscience, that >> quiet little voice in the back of his mind. >> >> > >I hope that you are incorrect in this opinion. I've been looking >forward to the "waking up" since I read the line. > True. And I could be wildly wrong here. Part of me wants her to be awake, but part of me doesn't, as I don't want Loiosh to lose his place as Vlad's foil in his inner dialogs. A three way conversation would be a bit much at times. Of course, Lady Teldra would know when to keep quiet and let the pros go about their work... >At least she'll be able to hear Loiosh' jokes now. :) I thought you /liked/ Lady Teldra? > >"Bones! It's Pirate Roberts!" "He's Dread, Jim." heh heh heh..... From mneme at io.com Wed Feb 18 11:32:14 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:32:14 -0600 Subject: [SPAM] Re: Agyar *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20040217161243.02b734e0@pro.softhome.net> References: <1ec85a1ef216.1ef2161ec85a@gwu.edu> <5.1.0.14.1.20040217161243.02b734e0@pro.softhome.net> Message-ID: <16435.48574.875673.104434@fnord.io.com> Tucker writes: >First: anyone know if the noiminally forthcoming Orb edition will use the >same excellent cover art? I believe not -- apparently, you, me, and Lisa are the only people in the universe who liked the original cover art. :( -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From davids at kithrup.com Wed Feb 18 11:58:38 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:58:38 -0800 (PST) Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: Message-ID: [ includes spoilers, skip now if you haven't read /Issola/ ] On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: >But now I'm concerned - are we going to have three-way >Teldra-Vlad-Loiosh mental discussions now? I don't think Vlad's going >to be able to say "shut up, Teldra." > But Lady Teldra wouldn't say anything that *deserved* a "shut up". Loiosh is snarky. Lady Teldra is unfailingly polite. I have hypothesized elsewhere that while Vlad is able to converse mentally with Loiosh, Loiosh will not be able to hear Vlad's conversations with Lady Teldra, and vice-versa. This pararectal idea arises from noting that when Vlad was inside the chain or sword or both, doing his defragment of Lady Teldra's soul, Loiosh couldn't follow what he was doing. But I hope to find out in /Tiassa/. From davids at kithrup.com Wed Feb 18 11:50:49 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:50:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: Flying Ships (was Reliability and POV) In-Reply-To: <20040218164713.42003.qmail@web40207.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Tim Owen wrote: >>Speaking of mostly-unrelated tangents, can dragons fly in Dragaera? >Well, "the Dragon" in Issola certainly flew. Of course that "Dragon" >was more God than Dragaeran fauna. > I believe you are mistaken. I recall no reference to "flying" (in the sense of flapping wings). >I seem to recall reading somewhere (Brokedown Palace maybe) a >reference to a dragon going through it's 1st molting and subsequently >not having fully functional wings yet. > Again, I think you misremember. I am nearly certain that Dragaeran dragons do not have any sort of wings. From davids at kithrup.com Wed Feb 18 12:01:58 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 12:01:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: [SPAM] Re: Agyar *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <16435.48574.875673.104434@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: Purely out of curiosity, was '[SPAM]' added to the subject by your e-mail handler, or by the dragaera mailing list? From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Wed Feb 18 12:00:05 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 12:00:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <78e730166ucp5ngcrq93vlfvq8dctuav2a@4ax.com> Message-ID: <20040218200005.6726.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> > Of course, Lady Teldra would know when to keep quiet > and let the pros > go about their work... > > >At least she'll be able to hear Loiosh' jokes now. > :) If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? ALL CAPS? I can see it now... (VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From jazzfish at softhome.net Wed Feb 18 12:34:06 2004 From: jazzfish at softhome.net (Tucker) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:34:06 -0500 Subject: Agyar (no spoilers) In-Reply-To: <16435.48574.875673.104434@fnord.io.com> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20040217161243.02b734e0@pro.softhome.net> <1ec85a1ef216.1ef2161ec85a@gwu.edu> <5.1.0.14.1.20040217161243.02b734e0@pro.softhome.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20040218152808.02b6d550@pro.softhome.net> > >First: anyone know if the noiminally forthcoming Orb edition will use the > >same excellent cover art? >I believe not -- apparently, you, me, and Lisa are the only people in >the universe who liked the original cover art. :( *grumble* Wait, that can't be right. Hang on a sec. . . . Ah, here we are. Steve liked it as well: "Great cover, too; but I've always been lucky with covers." http://www.dreamcafe.com/books.html (I tend to disagree: _Yendi_, _Taltos_, and _Gypsy_ in particular I don't much care for, and of course there's the Elric of Dragaera artwork on _LoCB_. I'm rather fond of _Agyar_'s cover, though.) Also, has there been an ex cathedra declaration of where Devera is in _Agyar_? I'm unsatisfied with the idea that she's the cigany, and I'd always thought that Jill's painting was a _self_-portrait. . . ---- "I can't think of much worse than spending a lifetime doing something that isn't what you want to do." --Neil Gaiman, 2003-05-18 From mklahn at mac.com Wed Feb 18 13:42:17 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:42:17 -0600 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <20040218200005.6726.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040218200005.6726.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <52A6631E-625B-11D8-ACBC-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Feb 18, 2004, at 14:00 , Kenneth Stone wrote: >> Of course, Lady Teldra would know when to keep quiet >> and let the pros >> go about their work... >> >>> At least she'll be able to hear Loiosh' jokes now. >> :) > > If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? > > ALL CAPS? I can see it now... > (VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) Ugh. Not all caps; that would not be Lady Teldra, but some member of the ousted Nigerian government: VLAD, I HAVE THIS GREAT BUISNESS PROPOSAL FOR MORROLAN. LET ME OUTLINE IT FOR YOU. No, Lady Teldra would be something much more elegant. Also, I don't think Lady Telda would call anyone rude, but would be much more subtle... -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From warbi at warbi.net Wed Feb 18 15:44:27 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:44:27 -0800 Subject: Issola References: Message-ID: <015501c3f679$27358340$3dadfea9@warbi> ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Silberstein" To: "Dragaera List" Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 11:58 AM Subject: Re: Issola This pararectal > idea arises from noting that when Vlad was inside the chain or sword > or both, doing his defragment of Lady Teldra's soul, Loiosh couldn't > follow what he was doing. > > But I hope to find out in /Tiassa/. Defrag of the soul- good one!!! ;-) warbi From bio_phy at hotmail.com Wed Feb 18 14:16:31 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:16:31 -0600 Subject: Agyar (no spoilers) Message-ID: >From: Tucker >(I tend to disagree: _Yendi_, _Taltos_, and _Gypsy_ in particular I don't >much care for, and of course there's the Elric of Dragaera artwork on >_LoCB_. I'm rather fond of _Agyar_'s cover, though.) I like any of the Hickman covers, and _Yendi_ is as good as any of his others imo. _________________________________________________________________ Dream of owning a home? Find out how in the First-time Home Buying Guide. http://special.msn.com/home/firsthome.armx From dusty at sayersnet.com Wed Feb 18 14:24:06 2004 From: dusty at sayersnet.com (J A 'Dusty' Sayers) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:24:06 -0500 Subject: Agyar (no spoilers) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20040218152808.02b6d550@pro.softhome.net> References: <5.1.0.14.1.20040217161243.02b734e0@pro.softhome.net> <1ec85a1ef216.1ef2161ec85a@gwu.edu> <5.1.0.14.1.20040217161243.02b734e0@pro.softhome.net> <5.1.0.14.1.20040218152808.02b6d550@pro.softhome.net> Message-ID: <4033E606.6010600@sayersnet.com> I'm partial to the original art as well. I hope they keep it, but who am I to say? Tucker wrote: > >> >First: anyone know if the noiminally forthcoming Orb edition will >> use the >> >same excellent cover art? >> I believe not -- apparently, you, me, and Lisa are the only people in >> the universe who liked the original cover art. :( > > > *grumble* > > Wait, that can't be right. Hang on a sec. > . . . > Ah, here we are. Steve liked it as well: "Great cover, too; but I've > always been lucky with covers." > http://www.dreamcafe.com/books.html > > (I tend to disagree: _Yendi_, _Taltos_, and _Gypsy_ in particular I > don't much care for, and of course there's the Elric of Dragaera > artwork on _LoCB_. I'm rather fond of _Agyar_'s cover, though.) > > Also, has there been an ex cathedra declaration of where Devera is in > _Agyar_? I'm unsatisfied with the idea that she's the cigany, and I'd > always thought that Jill's painting was a _self_-portrait. . . > > > ---- > "I can't think of much worse than spending a lifetime doing something > that isn't what you want to do." > --Neil Gaiman, 2003-05-18 > > -- J A Dusty Sayers Home Page http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/ Rescue the Princess http://www.sayersnet.com/~dusty/rescue/ 'Murtogg: If he were telling the truth, he wouldn?t have told us. 'Jack: Unless, of course, he knew you wouldn?t believe the truth even if he told it to you.' --Pirates of the Caribbean From stikjok at hotmail.com Wed Feb 18 14:34:50 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:34:50 +0000 Subject: Issola Message-ID: Issolaf course, Lady Teldra would know when to keep quiet >>>and let the pros >>>go about their work... >>> >>>>At least she'll be able to hear Loiosh' jokes now. >>>:) >> >>If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? >> >>ALL CAPS? I can see it now... >>(VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) > >Ugh. Not all caps; that would not be Lady Teldra, but some member of the >ousted Nigerian government: > >VLAD, I HAVE THIS GREAT BUISNESS PROPOSAL FOR MORROLAN. LET ME OUTLINE IT >FOR YOU. > >No, Lady Teldra would be something much more elegant. Also, I don't think >Lady Telda would call anyone rude, but would be much more subtle... There seems to be a lot of confusion between politeness, rudeness and appropriate behavior; remember the Teldra and Vlad had this very discussion, so Teldra is just as likely to be rude, antagonistic, nasty or vicious as any Orca tough... the difference is that Teldra will be completely aware of every nuance of tact or lack of it, aware of the effect it will have on her audience and will have deemed it... appropriate. There are times when appropriate behavior IS a spit in the eye... as we all know. Dave _________________________________________________________________ Watch high-quality video with fast playback at MSN Video. Free! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200365ave/direct/01/ From holden at oddjob.uchicago.edu Wed Feb 18 14:42:21 2004 From: holden at oddjob.uchicago.edu (Bradford Holden) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:42:21 -0600 Subject: Seen the other night.... Message-ID: <20040218164221.A16551@oddjob.uchicago.edu> I walked into the local Borders to look for a couple of books. I did find what I was looking for (Pattern Recognition by Gibson) but I perused the aisles for a bit. Borders has now decided to put suggested reading matter up, along the lines of the Amazon.com suggestions. The signs say, "If you like Blah, you might also like...." I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Joran, you might also like Steven Brust." Then, my head exploded. -- Bradford Holden "It is the Casablanca of dystopias!" - A. McDaniel on _We_ by Yevgeny Zamyatin From bonham15 at cox.net Wed Feb 18 15:02:13 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:02:13 -0600 Subject: Seen the other night.... References: <20040218164221.A16551@oddjob.uchicago.edu> Message-ID: <005d01c3f673$3f1ccd70$1e1d6344@user79dn2jmjai> > I walked into the local Borders to look for a couple of books. I did find > what I was looking for (Pattern Recognition by Gibson) but I perused the > aisles for a bit. Borders has now decided to put suggested reading matter > up, along the lines of the Amazon.com suggestions. The signs say, > "If you like Blah, you might also like...." > > I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Joran, you might also like > Steven Brust." > > Then, my head exploded. you just made me laugh and spit out part of my cheeseburger :(. i blame you for my messy keyboard. andy From dd-b at dd-b.net Wed Feb 18 15:13:51 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:13:51 -0600 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <52A6631E-625B-11D8-ACBC-000393D1260C@mac.com> (Matthew Klahn's message of "Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:42:17 -0600") References: <20040218200005.6726.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> <52A6631E-625B-11D8-ACBC-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: Matthew Klahn writes: > On Feb 18, 2004, at 14:00 , Kenneth Stone wrote: > >>> Of course, Lady Teldra would know when to keep quiet >>> and let the pros >>> go about their work... >>> >>>> At least she'll be able to hear Loiosh' jokes now. >>> :) >> >> If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? >> >> ALL CAPS? I can see it now... >> (VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) > > Ugh. Not all caps; that would not be Lady Teldra, but some member of > the ousted Nigerian government: > > VLAD, I HAVE THIS GREAT BUISNESS PROPOSAL FOR MORROLAN. LET ME OUTLINE > IT FOR YOU. And it can't be small caps, since that's already taken.... -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Wed Feb 18 15:14:43 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:14:43 -0600 Subject: [SPAM] Re: Agyar *spoilers* In-Reply-To: (David Silberstein's message of "Wed, 18 Feb 2004 12:01:58 -0800 (PST)") References: Message-ID: David Silberstein writes: > Purely out of curiosity, was '[SPAM]' added to the subject by your > e-mail handler, or by the dragaera mailing list? Nothing here would add to the subject header. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From ucblockhead at ucblockhead.org Wed Feb 18 15:16:41 2004 From: ucblockhead at ucblockhead.org (Ucblo C. Khead) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:16:41 -0800 Subject: Seen the other night.... In-Reply-To: <20040218164221.A16551@oddjob.uchicago.edu> References: <20040218164221.A16551@oddjob.uchicago.edu> Message-ID: <4033F259.2010308@ucblockhead.org> Bradford Holden wrote: >I walked into the local Borders to look for a couple of books. I did find >what I was looking for (Pattern Recognition by Gibson) but I perused the >aisles for a bit. Borders has now decided to put suggested reading matter >up, along the lines of the Amazon.com suggestions. The signs say, >"If you like Blah, you might also like...." > >I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Joran, you might also like >Steven Brust." > >Then, my head exploded. > > > If you like Cheez-Wiz, you might like Brie! Steve http://www.ucblockhead.org/journal From bryann at bryann.net Wed Feb 18 15:35:25 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:35:25 -0600 Subject: Flying Ships (was Reliability and POV) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >>Speaking of mostly-unrelated tangents, can dragons fly in Dragaera? > > >Well, "the Dragon" in Issola certainly flew. Of course that "Dragon" > >was more God than Dragaeran fauna. > > > > I believe you are mistaken. I recall no reference to "flying" (in the > sense of flapping wings). *** ISSOLA SPOILERS *** ISSOLA SPOILERS *** ABORT, ABORT *** ISSOLA SPOILERS BELOW *** So, I dug out every reference to the dragon at the end of Issola, and I agree, there is no evidence of wings or flying. Actually, it appears landbound the entire battle. (all references to the hardcover Issola) 226-227 - there was even a dragon which, from across a long distance, seemed almost to catch my eye for an instant, as if it knew me. I stared back. Could it be that one from the Paths of the Dead? No, for some reason, it didn't seem like that dragon. Eventually it looked away, leaving me wondering. 230 - We all stopped and looked, and discovered that we were, in fact, not the only ones moving directly at the Jenoine: the dragon was, too. 234 - one of the Jenoine was down indeed, and wouldn't be getting up again, and there was no mystery about what had taken it out: the dragon was holding it down with two paws and tearing chunks out of the thing with its teeth, and scattering it in all directions, as if to tell us that good, old-fashioned gore did, indeed, belong in a battle of gods, demigods, and wizardry ... another continued to be dismembered and gutted by the dragon, who wanted to make a thorough job of it 235 - the dragon, which had finished its meal and was now trying to get at the Jenoine who was holding off the Lords of Judgement, turned toward us, then, its mouth open, showing teeth the size of Blackwand, and began to move in our direction ... the dragon, for no reason that I could see, stopped as if it had struck a wall, rolled over--something that big does a lot of rolling over when it rolls--and then came to its feet once more, and shook its head in a very human gesture. 236 - then aliera went flying backward, tumbling backward liek a seed bag without the seed, landing next to the dragon. I thought she was dead, or at least injured, but she put her hand on the dragon's head, and, using it like a handhold, rose to her feet at once, shook her head in a gesture terribly reminiscent of the dragon's, then turned back toward the battle. It was terrifying to think that one of those things was entertaining the Demon Goddes, Sethra Lavode, teh Necromancer, a dragon, and Aliera e'Kieron. 237-238 - of all the sorceries and Great Weapons and gods and dragons and necromancies, it was that attack with that weapon that got through. 247 - they were gone, leaving only half the gods in the world, one very large dragon, and our little group standing on the spot of Adron's Disaster. 248 - the gods and even the dragon were gone as well. Bryan Newell I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you... - William Munny, Unforgiven (1992) From rone at ennui.org Wed Feb 18 16:02:46 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:02:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040219000246.DBF0F26C68@boredom.ennui.org> Dave Cooper writes: Anyway, _Issola_ has an honored place next to my bed with few other books since I can pick it up, open it to anywhere, and just start reading anywhere. P.S. Do YOU have any books like that? Tons, so it's not a special distinction. Heh. I've been meaning to write something about how _Issola_ helped me understand and refocus certain changes in my behavior. We'll see if i get around to it. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From rone at ennui.org Wed Feb 18 16:01:14 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:01:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040219000114.1F3F526C68@boredom.ennui.org> David Silberstein writes: [ includes spoilers, skip now if you haven't read /Issola/ ] On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Noam Izenberg wrote: >But now I'm concerned - are we going to have three-way >Teldra-Vlad-Loiosh mental discussions now? I don't think Vlad's going >to be able to say "shut up, Teldra." But Lady Teldra wouldn't say anything that *deserved* a "shut up". Loiosh is snarky. Lady Teldra is unfailingly polite. Not only that, but i can't see Vlad ever snapping off a "Shut up" towards Teldra, regardless of the circumstance. rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Feb 18 16:27:00 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 19:27:00 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <52A6631E-625B-11D8-ACBC-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <20040218200005.6726.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> <52A6631E-625B-11D8-ACBC-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <557567C4-6272-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 18, 2004, at 4:42 PM, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > On Feb 18, 2004, at 14:00 , Kenneth Stone wrote: > >>> Of course, Lady Teldra would know when to keep quiet >>> and let the pros >>> go about their work... >>> >>>> At least she'll be able to hear Loiosh' jokes now. >>> :) >> >> If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? >> >> ALL CAPS? I can see it now... >> (VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) > > Ugh. Not all caps; that would not be Lady Teldra, but some member of > the ousted Nigerian government: > > VLAD, I HAVE THIS GREAT BUISNESS PROPOSAL FOR MORROLAN. LET ME OUTLINE > IT FOR YOU. > > No, Lady Teldra would be something much more elegant. Also, I don't > think Lady Telda would call anyone rude, but would be much more > subtle... > > -- > Matthew S. Klahn > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > http://www.codetek.com > > How about Optima font using small caps? That would be truly elegant... From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Feb 18 16:24:13 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 19:24:13 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 18, 2004, at 1:39 PM, lazarus wrote: > On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:25:01 -0500, you wrote: > >> >> But now I'm concerned - are we going to have three-way >> Teldra-Vlad-Loiosh mental discussions now? I don't think Vlad's going >> to be able to say "shut up, Teldra." Whatever it turns out to be, I'm >> looking forward to finding out. >> > > I don't think Teldra exists as a separate cogent sentience anymore, so > much as she exists as an influence. In other words, she won't be > speaking to Vlad, but rather be more like Vlad's conscience, that > quiet little voice in the back of his mind. > > But what happens when Lady Teldra "wakes up"? From rone at ennui.org Wed Feb 18 16:22:00 2004 From: rone at ennui.org (rone) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:22:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: [SPAM] Re: Agyar *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <16435.48574.875673.104434@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <20040219002200.56C6926C68@boredom.ennui.org> Joshua Kronengold writes: Tucker writes: >First: anyone know if the noiminally forthcoming Orb edition will use the >same excellent cover art? I believe not -- apparently, you, me, and Lisa are the only people in the universe who liked the original cover art. :( Wait, which is the original cover art? rone -- Light stupidity decays into heavy stupidity. This violates energy conservation, but that's stupidity for you. - Rich Holmes From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Wed Feb 18 16:38:54 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:38:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: What Should I Buy? In-Reply-To: <1077072616.1082.5.camel@ilmarin> Message-ID: <20040219003854.54931.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> --- James Burbidge wrote: > On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 21:32, Gaertk at aol.com wrote: ... > > My current choices: > > > > Bujold, _Curse of Chalion_ > > Butcher, _Fool Moon_ > > Dean, _The Hidden Land_ > > Murphy, _Cat Raise the Dead_ > > > > I would recommend _The Hidden Land_, but a) I am assuming that you have > read _The Secret Country_ (if not, read it first) and b) I would urge > you not to get _The Hidden Land_ unless you also follow it up > immediately with _The Whim of the Dragon_. Agreed, and I would add a warning that, uh, without meaning anything personal about anybody, or anything, um, the ending of that series isn't my favorite of all the endings she's written. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Wed Feb 18 16:35:11 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:35:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <557567C4-6272-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040219003511.94144.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> --- Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > > On Feb 18, 2004, at 4:42 PM, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > > > > On Feb 18, 2004, at 14:00 , Kenneth Stone wrote: ... > >> If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? > >> > >> ALL CAPS? I can see it now... > >> (VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) ... > > No, Lady Teldra would be something much more elegant. Also, I don't > > think Lady Telda would call anyone rude, but would be much more > > subtle... I quite agree. > > -- > > Matthew S. Klahn > > Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > > http://www.codetek.com > > > > > > How about Optima font using small caps? That would be truly elegant... Isn't all psychic conversation in italics in these books? Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From gomi at speakeasy.net Wed Feb 18 16:35:30 2004 From: gomi at speakeasy.net (Gomi no Sensei) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 16:35:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: [SPAM] Re: Agyar *spoilers* In-Reply-To: <20040219002200.56C6926C68@boredom.ennui.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, rone wrote: > Wait, which is the original cover art? No luck on finding a scan of the original US hardcover art, but here are two covers from foreign editions, both of which blow goats compared to the (imo, fantastic) US paperback cover: http://www.editions-l-atalante.com/images/ouvrages/dentelle/brust/agyar.jpg http://www.actusf.com/SF/images/Brust/Brust01.jpg pe From jamesandmary.burbidge at sympatico.ca Wed Feb 18 17:05:27 2004 From: jamesandmary.burbidge at sympatico.ca (James Burbidge) Date: 18 Feb 2004 20:05:27 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <52A6631E-625B-11D8-ACBC-000393D1260C@mac.com> References: <20040218200005.6726.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> <52A6631E-625B-11D8-ACBC-000393D1260C@mac.com> Message-ID: <1077152728.1208.0.camel@ilmarin> On Wed, 2004-02-18 at 16:42, Matthew Klahn wrote: > > On Feb 18, 2004, at 14:00 , Kenneth Stone wrote: > > >> Of course, Lady Teldra would know when to keep quiet > >> and let the pros > >> go about their work... > >> > >>> At least she'll be able to hear Loiosh' jokes now. > >> :) > > > > If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? > > > > ALL CAPS? I can see it now... > > (VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) > > Ugh. Not all caps; that would not be Lady Teldra, but some member of > the ousted Nigerian government: > > VLAD, I HAVE THIS GREAT BUISNESS PROPOSAL FOR MORROLAN. LET ME OUTLINE > IT FOR YOU. > Nah. All caps is Death. Or maybe BIFF. From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Feb 18 17:13:53 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 20:13:53 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <20040219003511.94144.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040219003511.94144.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Feb 18, 2004, at 7:35 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote: > --- Kenneth Gorelick wrote: >> >> On Feb 18, 2004, at 4:42 PM, Matthew Klahn wrote: >> >>> >>> On Feb 18, 2004, at 14:00 , Kenneth Stone wrote: > ... > >>>> If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? >>>> >>>> ALL CAPS? I can see it now... >>>> (VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) > ... > >>> No, Lady Teldra would be something much more elegant. Also, I don't >>> think Lady Telda would call anyone rude, but would be much more >>> subtle... > > I quite agree. > >>> -- >>> Matthew S. Klahn >>> Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. >>> http://www.codetek.com >>> >>> >> >> How about Optima font using small caps? That would be truly elegant... > > Isn't all psychic conversation in italics in these books? > > Jerry Friedman > > Ah, but we have not yet seen conversation with a Great Weapon...and a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds... From davids at kithrup.com Wed Feb 18 17:27:25 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:27:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Agyar In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Gomi no Sensei wrote: >On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, rone wrote: > >> Wait, which is the original cover art? > >No luck on finding a scan of the original US hardcover art, I nearly think that the esteemed author's webpage has it: http://www.dreamcafe.com/graphics/book_covers/agyar.jpg From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 18 19:58:48 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:58:48 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Dave Cooper wrote: #>3. This one is just my speculation: Vlad may be the son of a goddess. #> #>-- Mark A. Mandel # #Oh, for the love of... what self respecting goddess would have bumped uglies #with Vlad's father? Now his grandfather is quite a man, but we've read how #mortal his wife was. Verra isn't out for a fun roll in the hay, she's out for revenge on the Jenoine. She's a manipulative b***h with plenty of power and the capability for very long-range planning. We know Vlad is the reincarnation of Kieron's and Aliera's brother; maybe as such he's fated or prophesied for some special destiny. How better for a Demon Goddess to gain influence over that reincarnated soul than to take mortal form (if Sethra can shape-shift, or seem to, why not a goddess?), pull the soul out of wherever it's been waiting, and bear it as a child into a family that worships her? -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 18 20:01:03 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 23:01:03 -0500 Subject: Flying Ships (was Reliability and POV) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: #Speaking of mostly-unrelated tangents, can dragons fly in Dragaera? I've #yet to find a reference to a "dragon wing" (well, other than as part of the #Imperial Palace) I don't think so. We meet one in BP and one in (damn, gotta dig them books outta the boxes and reread, been too long: is it Jhereg or Taltos?!), and neither one flies. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From dd-b at dd-b.net Wed Feb 18 20:23:16 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:23:16 -0600 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: (Dave Cooper's message of "Wed, 18 Feb 2004 04:17:58 +0000") References: Message-ID: "Dave Cooper" writes: > P.S. Do YOU have any books like that? Sure. Most of Doc Smith. An awful lot of Heinlein. Dorothy Sayers. More recently, Bujold's _A Civil Campaign_ works that way awfully well. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Wed Feb 18 20:24:51 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:24:51 -0600 Subject: Flying Ships In-Reply-To: (Bryan Newell's message of "Mon, 16 Feb 2004 21:36:19 -0600") References: Message-ID: "Bryan Newell" writes: > Speaking of mostly-unrelated tangents, can dragons fly in Dragaera? Interesting question. I think probably not. I mean, how would the Norska catch them, if they could fly? -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 18 20:29:13 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 23:29:13 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <20040218200005.6726.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Kenneth Stone wrote: #If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? # #ALL CAPS? I can see it now... #(VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) No, no, no. UPPERCASE LOOKS LIKE SHOUTING. Teldra would need a different font, more elegant than the usual font of the book. I'm fond of Palatino, myself. Or perhaps the lovely font used in ... gotta dig out the books ... LOCB? -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 18 20:20:20 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 23:20:20 -0500 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: #(I assume there aren't any others in use because, well, we would have #heard about it by now, which I guess is why Zungaron is described as #clueless on pg 41 [hc] of _Issola_. Sethra is kind of vague on this #point - perhaps because SKZB wants flexibility.) If there are 17, #perhaps the gods have the rest (or destroyed them). Or perhaps the #Serioli. Or the J (though that seems unlikely). Or maybe some of them don't (quite) exist yet, as Gs didn't until I. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From gomi at pollywog.com Wed Feb 18 20:30:44 2004 From: gomi at pollywog.com (Paul Echeverri) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 20:30:44 -0800 Subject: Agyar In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:27:25 -0800 (PST), David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Gomi no Sensei wrote: > >> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, rone wrote: >> >>> Wait, which is the original cover art? >> >> No luck on finding a scan of the original US hardcover art, > > I nearly think that the esteemed author's webpage has it: > > http://www.dreamcafe.com/graphics/book_covers/agyar.jpg Unless the 1993 hardcover art was identical to the 1994 paperback, this is the art for the paperback edition. pe From casey at the-bat.net Wed Feb 18 21:27:21 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 00:27:21 -0500 Subject: Agyar In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3f6a9$0c9b5c00$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> Paul Echeverri wrote: > On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:27:25 -0800 (PST), David Silberstein > wrote: > > > On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Gomi no Sensei wrote: > > > >> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, rone wrote: > >> > >>> Wait, which is the original cover art? > >> > >> No luck on finding a scan of the original US hardcover art, > > > > I nearly think that the esteemed author's webpage has it: > > > > http://www.dreamcafe.com/graphics/book_covers/agyar.jpg > > Unless the 1993 hardcover art was identical to the 1994 > paperback, this is the art for the paperback edition. > What's more, unless Tor was deeply discounting the 1993 hard cover and making the odd choice of printing the price on the front cover rather than the inside front flap, this is indeed a scan of a massmarket edition. (I'd have to dig up my copy to determine if it is an original printing.) Casey From matthew at infodancer.org Wed Feb 18 23:27:41 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 01:27:41 -0600 Subject: Seen the other night.... In-Reply-To: <20040218164221.A16551@oddjob.uchicago.edu> References: <20040218164221.A16551@oddjob.uchicago.edu> Message-ID: <20040219072741.GV10286@infodancer.org> On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 04:42:21PM -0600, Bradford Holden wrote: > I walked into the local Borders to look for a couple of books. I did find > what I was looking for (Pattern Recognition by Gibson) but I perused the > aisles for a bit. Borders has now decided to put suggested reading matter > up, along the lines of the Amazon.com suggestions. The signs say, > "If you like Blah, you might also like...." > > I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Joran, you might also like > Steven Brust." And you take issue with this assertion why, exactly? -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From skzb at dreamcafe.com Thu Feb 19 04:55:21 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (skzb) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 04:55:21 -0800 Subject: [SPAM] Re: Agyar *spoilers* References: <1ec85a1ef216.1ef2161ec85a@gwu.edu> <5.1.0.14.1.20040217161243.02b734e0@pro.softhome.net> <16435.48574.875673.104434@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <007201c3f6e7$a2674120$f900000a@theaddiction2> > Tucker writes: > >First: anyone know if the noiminally forthcoming Orb edition will use the > >same excellent cover art? > > I believe not -- apparently, you, me, and Lisa are the only people in > the universe who liked the original cover art. :( > Add me to the list. But I like the new one, too. From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Thu Feb 19 06:05:19 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 06:05:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: Flying Ships In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040219140519.92892.qmail@web21411.mail.yahoo.com> > > Speaking of mostly-unrelated tangents, can dragons > fly in Dragaera? > > Interesting question. I think probably not. I > mean, how would the > Norska catch them, if they could fly? I agree with the logic of the aforementioned arguments, but I like my dragons to be able to fly, so I will hold out until a conclusive statement is made by multiple characters or Brust himself. Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ From books at bofh.com Thu Feb 19 06:11:47 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 07:11:47 -0700 Subject: Flying Ships (was Reliability and POV) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040219141147.GA23236@bofh.com> > #Speaking of mostly-unrelated tangents, can dragons fly in Dragaera? I've > #yet to find a reference to a "dragon wing" (well, other than as part of the > #Imperial Palace) > > I don't think so. We meet one in BP and one in (damn, gotta dig them > books outta the boxes and reread, been too long: is it Jhereg or > Taltos?!), and neither one flies. There are at least three sightings. BP, Taltos, and Issola. Although, since the dragon in Issola is Devera, maybe it doesn't count. :) -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From mneme at io.com Thu Feb 19 06:46:37 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:46:37 -0600 Subject: Seen the other night.... In-Reply-To: <20040219072741.GV10286@infodancer.org> References: <20040218164221.A16551@oddjob.uchicago.edu> <20040219072741.GV10286@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <16436.52301.277311.732499@fnord.io.com> Matthew Hunter writes: >On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 04:42:21PM -0600, Bradford Holden wrote: >> I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Joran, you might also like >> Steven Brust." >And you take issue with this assertion why, exactly? My question as well. Now, the other way, I don't see, but that's not what was suggested. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Thu Feb 19 06:44:14 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 06:44:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040219144414.98175.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> >Ugh. Not all caps; that would not be >Lady Teldra, but some member of the >ousted Nigerian government. ----- >Teldra is just as likely to be rude, >antagonistic, nasty or vicious as any >Orca tough... ----- >Isn't all psychic conversation in >italics in these books? ----- >Nah. All caps is Death. Or maybe BIFF. ----- >No, no, no. UPPERCASE LOOKS LIKE SHOUTING. >Teldra would need a different font, >more elegant than the usual font of >the book. I'm fond of Palatino, myself. >Or perhaps the lovely font used >in ... gotta dig out the books ... LOCB? ----- >How about Optima font using small caps? >That would be truly elegant... ----- Yes, Caps is kind of dumb. I was trying to think of some way to not have to change fonts mid-text though. I think that could complicate printing. But Palatino is nice. Unfortunately I cannot find Optima on my computer. Italics is nice for mental communication because you get the subtle _emphasis_ that goes along with it, like its in your head. (I think somebody used parentheses once, maybe Stephen King. Tommyknockers?) (_How about both?_) She would need flexibility with elegance. >Ah, but we have not yet seen conversation >with a Great Weapon...and a foolish >consistency is the hobgoblin of small >minds... Which is why we should leave it to the boss. :-) Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From mneme at io.com Thu Feb 19 06:39:46 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:39:46 -0600 Subject: [SPAM] Re: Agyar *spoilers* In-Reply-To: References: <16435.48574.875673.104434@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <16436.51890.50445.145580@fnord.io.com> David Silberstein writes: >Purely out of curiosity, was '[SPAM]' added to the subject by your >e-mail handler, or by the dragaera mailing list? My email handler -- apparently, @softhome.com (where Tucker's posting from) got added to a blacklist my ISP is using, and I forgot to edit it out of the subject line [after unblacklisting @softhome.com, of course]. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Thu Feb 19 07:07:03 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 10:07:03 -0500 Subject: Fate/Prophecy Re: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4645D8FD-62ED-11D8-98A5-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 18, 2004, at 10:58 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > Verra isn't out for a fun roll in the hay, she's out for revenge on the > Jenoine. She's a manipulative b***h with plenty of power and the > capability for very long-range planning. We know Vlad is the > reincarnation of Kieron's and Aliera's brother; maybe as such he's > fated > or prophesied for some special destiny. One thing I don't care for in Fantasy especially is the prophecy gambit. You invest so much in your protagonist as an average schmoe thrust into or choosing themselves to take on an epic adventure, then you find out halfway through, or several books in that they were fated/prophesied etc to be the hero/ine. This invalidates a great deal about how they get to where they're going. All the external - and internal - struggle they go through becomes relatively meaningless if they were _always_ going to somehow make it because it was foreseen, or because they had that special something all along. I've been grateful - and very impressed - that Steve has put Vlad skating on that thin edge without falling into the stew. I hope that continues. David Brin wrote a critique of Star Wars in this very vein - Luke starts out the innocent every-farmboy, but you find out he's really basically the only one in the galaxy (or one of the two) who could eve have pulled off what he did. Regardless of what else I think about Brin, the article crystallized this preordained hero problem for me. > Being Zero Man (Noam Izenberg's nighttime superhero avocation) From Gaertk at aol.com Thu Feb 19 07:47:42 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 10:47:42 -0500 Subject: Seen the other night.... Message-ID: <46273611.1CB8B527.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/19/2004 2:27:41 AM Eastern Standard Time, Matthew Hunter writes: > On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 04:42:21PM -0600, Bradford Holden > wrote: >> Borders has now decided to put suggested reading matter >> up, along the lines of the Amazon.com suggestions. ?The >> signs say, "If you like Blah, you might also like...." >> >> I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Joran, you >> might also like Steven Brust." > > And you take issue with this assertion why, exactly? I myself first heard about Brust when I was hanging out on rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan. --KG From matthew at infodancer.org Thu Feb 19 07:44:45 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:44:45 -0600 Subject: Fate/Prophecy Re: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <4645D8FD-62ED-11D8-98A5-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> References: <4645D8FD-62ED-11D8-98A5-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <20040219154445.GA16106@infodancer.org> On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 10:07:03AM -0500, Noam Izenberg wrote: > David Brin wrote a critique of Star Wars in this very vein - Luke > starts out the > innocent every-farmboy, but you find out he's really basically the only > one in the > galaxy (or one of the two) who could eve have pulled off what he did. > Regardless > of what else I think about Brin, the article crystallized this > preordained hero problem > for me. I've read the article, and agree it makes some good points. However, stories about "prophesied heros" can be very well written as well. I think what you are really getting at is the conflict between expectations and results. If you go into a story thinking, "Here's this ordinary guy who's struggling to sink or swim on his own", and you find out in book 5 that he's really *not* an ordinary guy, you feel betrayed. But if you go into the story knowing (or reasonably expecting) that your hero has some kind of Special Destiny, then it's not a betrayal, it's a way to build tension. (And you can still appreciate the accomplishments of a "prophesied hero" if they are written in such a way that they don't come cheaply). To merge two threads, doing the destiny thing is something that Jordan really does well. In the first couple books, the destiny bit is handed straight off to the reader, but the characters still have to struggle both to accept what they have been told is their fate, and to actively strive to bring it about. Nothing is dimished by the presence of the Prophecies of the Dragon; indeed, much of the story depends on that. Star Wars, on the other hand, doesn't give you the boot to the head until the second movie. Not that that particular aspect of the story is poorly done -- it adds depth and a personal touch -- but it does betray the everyman ideal that's set up in the first movie. And the recent prequels take it the other way around, by putting too much weight on the "destiny" idea, to the point that it becomes the only plot driver. A more compelling flaw in the Star Wars universe, which Brin also describes, is the "Jedi Nobility" argument; ie, if you can't use the Force, you are constrained to be a peon. But I don't have to like the political ramifications of the Old Republic's form of governance to recognize that they can make a good storytelling framework. As for Vlad... the Destiny card was played way back when, I think even in Jhereg, when Aliera tells him about his soul. I don't think it cheapens any of his accomplishments to date. On the other hand, it DOES cheapen (potentially) his friendship with Aliera, Sethra, and Morrolan! -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From warlord at dragon.com Thu Feb 19 08:32:11 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:32:11 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark A Mandel [mailto:mam at theworld.com] > Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 10:59 PM > > On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Dave Cooper wrote: > > #>3. This one is just my speculation: Vlad may be the son of a goddess. > #> > #>-- Mark A. Mandel > # > #Oh, for the love of... what self respecting goddess would have > bumped uglies > #with Vlad's father? Now his grandfather is quite a man, but > we've read how > #mortal his wife was. > > Verra isn't out for a fun roll in the hay, she's out for revenge on the > Jenoine. She's a manipulative b***h with plenty of power and the > capability for very long-range planning. We know Vlad is the > reincarnation of Kieron's and Aliera's brother; maybe as such he's fated > or prophesied for some special destiny. How better for a Demon Goddess > to gain influence over that reincarnated soul than to take mortal form > (if Sethra can shape-shift, or seem to, why not a goddess?), pull the > soul out of wherever it's been waiting, and bear it as a child into a > family that worships her? > This thought occurred to me as well, so I was *very* interested, not to mentioned surprised, when I found out she did not know about spellbreaker, because that means THE task(s) she has in mind for him is unrelated. This intrigues. W "You need a reason to adventure. For me, adventure IS the reason." From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Thu Feb 19 08:43:43 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:43:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040219164343.36566.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> --- Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > > On Feb 18, 2004, at 7:35 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote: > > > --- Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > >> > >> On Feb 18, 2004, at 4:42 PM, Matthew Klahn wrote: > >> > >>> > >>> On Feb 18, 2004, at 14:00 , Kenneth Stone wrote: > > ... > > > >>>> If Loiosh gets italics, what does Teldra get? > >>>> > >>>> ALL CAPS? I can see it now... > >>>> (VLAD, YOU ARE BEING RUDE. :-) > > ... > > > >>> No, Lady Teldra would be something much more elegant. Also, I don't > >>> think Lady Telda would call anyone rude, but would be much more > >>> subtle... > > > > I quite agree. > > > >>> -- > >>> Matthew S. Klahn > >>> Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. > >>> http://www.codetek.com > >>> > >>> > >> > >> How about Optima font using small caps? That would be truly > elegant... > > > > Isn't all psychic conversation in italics in these books? No, self, you're forgetting the dragon in _Taltos_, which talked in all caps. Not only that, you're forgetting whether they were italicized or not. > > Jerry Friedman > > > > > > Ah, but we have not yet seen conversation with a Great Weapon...and a > foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds... Present company excepted, of course. And I take it this isn't the right misquotation to correct? As Ken Stone noted, we should leave it to the boss. In fact, we have no choice. But as Steven uses italics for both communication with Loiosh and psionic communication, I'll be very surprised if he doesn't use it for communication with a Great Weapon. Of course, if you enjoy imagining what font would be perfect for Teldra, you're right not to let me stop you. I wasn't even trying to stop you. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Thu Feb 19 08:51:56 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:51:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040219165156.40263.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> --- Warlord wrote: > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Mark A Mandel [mailto:mam at theworld.com] > > Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 10:59 PM > > > > On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Dave Cooper wrote: > > > > #>3. This one is just my speculation: Vlad may be the son of a > goddess. > > #> > > #>-- Mark A. Mandel > > # > > #Oh, for the love of... what self respecting goddess would have > > bumped uglies > > #with Vlad's father? Now his grandfather is quite a man, but > > we've read how > > #mortal his wife was. > > > > Verra isn't out for a fun roll in the hay, she's out for revenge on > the > > Jenoine. She's a manipulative b***h with plenty of power and the > > capability for very long-range planning. We know Vlad is the > > reincarnation of Kieron's and Aliera's brother; maybe as such he's > fated > > or prophesied for some special destiny. How better for a Demon Goddess > > to gain influence over that reincarnated soul than to take mortal form > > (if Sethra can shape-shift, or seem to, why not a goddess?), pull the > > soul out of wherever it's been waiting, and bear it as a child into a > > family that worships her? Fascinating. > This thought occurred to me as well, so I was *very* interested, > not to mentioned surprised, when I found out she did not know > about spellbreaker, because that means THE task(s) she has in > mind for him is unrelated. This intrigues. It doesn't necessarily mean that. She may have just not known that the destiny she knows about, or the task she has in mind, is related to Spellbreaker. It is still interesting, though. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Feb 19 09:31:35 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:31:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: Seen the other night.... In-Reply-To: <46273611.1CB8B527.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <46273611.1CB8B527.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/19/2004 2:27:41 AM Eastern Standard Time, Matthew Hunter writes: > > > On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 04:42:21PM -0600, Bradford Holden > >> I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Jordan, you > >> might also like Steven Brust." > > > > And you take issue with this assertion why, exactly? > > I myself first heard about Brust when I was hanging out on > rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan. Ooh, ooh - I was involved in agitating for the creation of r.a.sf.w.r-j back when I was reading r.a.sf.w. (weren't there a few dozen more dots?) and Jordan posts periodically took it over. But that was in another country... Makes me miss my .cern address. As to the exploding head issue: As a logical construct, the statement doesn't have a lot of information content - "there exists at least one person who likes RJ and SKZB." Beyond that, De gustibus non disputandum est. From casey at the-bat.net Thu Feb 19 09:31:39 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:31:39 -0500 Subject: Seen the other night.... In-Reply-To: <46273611.1CB8B527.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: > I myself first heard about Brust when I was hanging out on > rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan. I'm sorry that you had to wait that long. Me, I found a cool paperback with a black cover and a dragon-like creature emerging from an egg back in the spring of '83. Since I had run out of new McCaffrey and Heinlein to read at the time and had a couple of dollars burning a hole in my pocket, I bought it. I've never been tempted by a Jordan cover. What I've heard in discussion since makes me glad of it. Steven _has_ had good luck with cover art. Casey From matthew at infodancer.org Thu Feb 19 09:40:02 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:40:02 -0600 Subject: Seen the other night.... In-Reply-To: References: <46273611.1CB8B527.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <20040219174002.GC16106@infodancer.org> On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 12:31:39PM -0500, Casey Rousseau wrote: > > I myself first heard about Brust when I was hanging out on > > rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan. > I'm sorry that you had to wait that long. Me, I found a cool paperback > with a black cover and a dragon-like creature emerging from an egg back > in the spring of '83. Since I had run out of new McCaffrey and Heinlein > to read at the time and had a couple of dollars burning a hole in my > pocket, I bought it. I've never been tempted by a Jordan cover. What > I've heard in discussion since makes me glad of it. The Jordan covers are atrocious. If you get the author and/or publisher drunk, they will agree with you (the publisher might caveat his agreement with "But that artist does sell well..." if he's not yet sufficiently drunk). I was similarly put off but the Jordan covers on the first three books. While the quality of the writing has its peaks and valleys, the cover art has remained consistently poor. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Thu Feb 19 11:59:53 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:59:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040219165156.40263.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040219195953.31122.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> > > This thought occurred to me as well, so I was > *very* interested, > > not to mentioned surprised, when I found out she > did not know > > about spellbreaker, because that means THE task(s) > she has in > > mind for him is unrelated. This intrigues. > > It doesn't necessarily mean that. She may have just > not known that > the destiny she knows about, or the task she has in > mind, is related > to Spellbreaker. It is still interesting, though. What makes you (anybody) think that she doesn't know? Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From warlord at dragon.com Thu Feb 19 12:45:01 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 15:45:01 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040219195953.31122.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Kenneth Stone [mailto:knots4kcs at yahoo.com] > Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 3:00 PM > To: dragaera > Subject: RE: Question for THE Steven > > > > > This thought occurred to me as well, so I was > > *very* interested, > > > not to mentioned surprised, when I found out she > > did not know > > > about spellbreaker, because that means THE task(s) > > she has in > > > mind for him is unrelated. This intrigues. > > > > It doesn't necessarily mean that. She may have just > > not known that > > the destiny she knows about, or the task she has in > > mind, is related > > to Spellbreaker. It is still interesting, though. > > What makes you (anybody) think that she doesn't > know? > Issola. W 9:17 p.m. A space/time wormhole opened up near the storage units by the freeway, disgorging three "hippies," their ample tresses defying gender identification. An officer conferred with the flower children, who like, kept on going on. Police Log 07-16-02, Arcata Eye From holden at oddjob.uchicago.edu Thu Feb 19 12:59:57 2004 From: holden at oddjob.uchicago.edu (Bradford Holden) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:59:57 -0600 Subject: Seen the other night.... In-Reply-To: <1077221413.22202.ezmlm@dragaera.info>; from dragaera-digest-help@dragaera.info on Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 08:10:13PM -0000 References: <1077221413.22202.ezmlm@dragaera.info> Message-ID: <20040219145957.C12344@oddjob.uchicago.edu> Quoting dragaera-digest-help at dragaera.info (dragaera-digest-help at dragaera.info): > From: Joshua Kronengold > Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:46:37 -0600 > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Seen the other night.... > > Matthew Hunter writes: > >On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 04:42:21PM -0600, Bradford Holden wrote: > >> I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Joran, you might also like > >> Steven Brust." > >And you take issue with this assertion why, exactly? > > My question as well. Now, the other way, I don't see, but that's not > what was suggested. I am puzzled as to what Jordan and Brust have in common. One writes long complicated epics about good versus evil. The other writes books with sardonic protagonists undergoing journeys of self-discovery. At least that is how I see it. If you like Robert Jordan you might like: George R. R. Martin Terry Goodkind (caveat emptor) Terry Brooks J. R. R. Tolkien (Cart...horse...) and maybe some equivalent epic space opera David Brin E. E. "Doc" Smith but Steven Brust? I guess they both (sometimes) write books about guys with long pointy metal things. I hate to think what would happen if the Jordan fan picked up the recently reissued "Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille" expecting complicated epic fantasy. They seem really different to me. Hence the clean up in the SF and Fantasy aisle. -- Bradford Holden "And goalies can only play net wearing an apron and holding a live largemouth bass." - One of John Buccigross's suggestions for improving the NHL. From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Thu Feb 19 13:16:47 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:16:47 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040219195953.31122.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040219211647.71619.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> --- Kenneth Stone wrote: > > > This thought occurred to me as well, so I was > > *very* interested, > > > not to mentioned surprised, when I found out she > > did not know > > > about spellbreaker, because that means THE task(s) > > she has in > > > mind for him is unrelated. This intrigues. > > > > It doesn't necessarily mean that. She may have just > > not known that > > the destiny she knows about, or the task she has in > > mind, is related > > to Spellbreaker. It is still interesting, though. > > What makes you (anybody) think that she doesn't > know? ISTR that she's surprised when she first sees it, which must be in _Taltos_. I suppose she could just be surprised that Vlad has it *already*. Or she could have not put two and two together, or she could be acting. (It strikes as very likely, though not certain, that she's acting later in _Taltos_, during the discussion of who's going to leave the Paths.) -- Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From Randi128 at aol.com Thu Feb 19 13:45:24 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:45:24 EST Subject: Seen the other night.... Message-ID: <163.2bd7b1b0.2d668874@aol.com> In a message dated 02/19/2004 4:10:46 PM Eastern Standard Time, holden at oddjob.uchicago.edu writes: > > Matthew Hunter writes: > > >On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 04:42:21PM -0600, Bradford Holden < > holden at oddjob.uchicago.edu> wrote: > > >> I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Joran, you might also like > > >> Steven Brust." > > >And you take issue with this assertion why, exactly? > > > > My question as well. Now, the other way, I don't see, but that's not > > what was suggested. > > I am puzzled as to what Jordan and Brust have in common. One writes long > complicated epics about good versus evil. The other writes books with > sardonic protagonists undergoing journeys of self-discovery. At least > that is how I see it. > There was a discussion on the list about a year ago regarding Mr. Jordan's work and it did get a little ugly. They have different writing styles and I do not believe that it is a fair or accurate analogy. I am quite fond of Steve's books and I do not particularly care for Mr. Jordan's brand of writing (not that he is not an accomplished author with millions of sales to his credit, because he is, and it can be argued that he is a phenomenal writer and author). You are always going to take the risk of not liking a book when you read it based on someone else's recomendation. If all authors wrote the same kinds of books, had the same methods of character development, and the same writing style, then how would you separate out the books and authors that you actual like? There would be no room or need for personal taste and the literary world would be a worse place for it. John D. Barbato, OD From jjnichol at MIT.EDU Thu Feb 19 13:41:16 2004 From: jjnichol at MIT.EDU (Joy Jennifer Nicholson) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:41:16 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 18 Feb 2004 04:17:58 GMT." Message-ID: <200402192141.i1JLfG7g014105@mass-toolpike.mit.edu> The Dark Jewels trilogy, by Anne Bishop. > I have to admit it... I've read and reread this novel more than any others > by Brust save _To reign in Hell_. I love books where there is major > personal growth by characters I love... and you have to admit that Vlads' > life is changed more here than in any since he lost his wife and his career. > And THAT book is a downer. > > Or it may just be me. I was having marital problems at the time I was > reading _Teckla_ and may have just been transfering. > > Anyway, _Issola_ has an honored place next to my bed with few other books > since I can pick it up, open it to anywhere, and just start reading > anywhere. > > Dave > > P.S. Do YOU have any books like that? > > _________________________________________________________________ > Stay informed on Election 2004 and the race to Super Tuesday. > http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx > From mam at theworld.com Thu Feb 19 14:39:17 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 17:39:17 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040219211647.71619.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: # #--- Kenneth Stone wrote: #> > > This thought occurred to me as well, so I was #> > *very* interested, #> > > not to mentioned surprised, when I found out she #> > did not know #> > > about spellbreaker, because that means THE task(s) #> > she has in #> > > mind for him is unrelated. This intrigues. #> > #> > It doesn't necessarily mean that. She may have just #> > not known that #> > the destiny she knows about, or the task she has in #> > mind, is related #> > to Spellbreaker. It is still interesting, though. #> #> What makes you (anybody) think that she doesn't #> know? # #ISTR that she's surprised when she first sees it, which must #be in _Taltos_. I suppose she could just be surprised that #Vlad has it *already*. Or she could have not put two and two #together, or she could be acting. (It strikes as very likely, #though not certain, that she's acting later in _Taltos_, during #the discussion of who's going to leave the Paths.) Or she knew he was going to get a GW but didn't know more than that. And the connection of Spellbreaker to Gs *was* a weird one. (As if we had some idea of what's normal for a GW.) But even if there's no fate, destiny, prophecy, etc., involved, or if there is but Verra doesn't know about it, influence over that reincarnated soul still looks like a good bet for her. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From ehahn at isochronism.com Thu Feb 19 14:38:23 2004 From: ehahn at isochronism.com (Edward Hahn) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 17:38:23 -0500 Subject: Seen the other night.... In-Reply-To: References: <46273611.1CB8B527.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <53811712-632C-11D8-B16C-000393962F9C@isochronism.com> On 19 Feb 2004, at 12:31 PM, Philip Hart wrote: > As to the exploding head issue: > As a logical construct, the statement doesn't have a lot of information > content - "there exists at least one person who likes RJ and SKZB." > Beyond that, De gustibus non disputandum est. Exactly. I gave up on him (Jordan) several years ago. So much potential, so many occasional glimpses of a very rich world-history, all getting stuck in the mud. ed -- Ed Hahn / ehahn at isochronism.com "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got an even swing!" From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Thu Feb 19 14:31:44 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:31:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040219223144.89781.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> > Issola. > > W What specifically? ------------- Possible Kiera Spoiler!! * * * * * * * * * * * * * >ISTR that she's surprised when >she first sees it, which must >be in _Taltos_. I suppose she >could just be surprised that >Vlad has it *already*. Or she >could have not put two and two >together, or she could be >acting. (It strikes as very >likely, though not certain, >that she's acting later in >_Taltos_, during the discussion >of who's going to leave the Paths.) > >JF I agree with the latter, particularly because I think its Verra's blood (the blood of a god(dess?)) that Kiera gave to Vlad. Remember that Sethra was once offered God-hood? And she's a vampire? So I think the blood was the offer of god- hood (Which she "gave" to Kiera, and Kiera gave to Vlad). I think Aliera, Morrolan, and possibly Vlad now all have a little god-hood in them. Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From warbi at warbi.net Thu Feb 19 16:20:28 2004 From: warbi at warbi.net (warbi) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:20:28 -0800 Subject: Seen the other night.... References: <1077221413.22202.ezmlm@dragaera.info> <20040219145957.C12344@oddjob.uchicago.edu> Message-ID: <00f801c3f747$594775e0$3dadfea9@warbi> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bradford Holden" To: Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 12:59 PM Subject: Re: Seen the other night.... > Quoting dragaera-digest-help at dragaera.info (dragaera-digest-help at dragaera.info): > > > From: Joshua Kronengold > > Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:46:37 -0600 > > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > > Subject: Re: Seen the other night.... > > > > Matthew Hunter writes: > > >On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 04:42:21PM -0600, Bradford Holden wrote: > > >> I saw a sign that said, "If you like Robert Joran, you might also like > > >> Steven Brust." > > >And you take issue with this assertion why, exactly? > > > > My question as well. Now, the other way, I don't see, but that's not > > what was suggested. > > I am puzzled as to what Jordan and Brust have in common. One writes long > complicated epics about good versus evil. The other writes books with > sardonic protagonists undergoing journeys of self-discovery. At least > that is how I see it. > > If you like Robert Jordan you might like: > George R. R. Martin > Terry Goodkind (caveat emptor) > Terry Brooks > J. R. R. Tolkien (Cart...horse...) > > and maybe some equivalent epic space opera > > David Brin > E. E. "Doc" Smith > > but Steven Brust? I guess they both (sometimes) write books about > guys with long pointy metal things. I hate to think what would happen > if the Jordan fan picked up the recently reissued "Cowboy Feng's Space > Bar and Grille" expecting complicated epic fantasy. > > They seem really different to me. Hence the clean up in the SF and Fantasy > aisle. > > -- > Bradford Holden > "And goalies can only play net wearing an apron and holding a live > largemouth bass." > - One of John Buccigross's suggestions for improving the NHL. > I wouldn't put Martin in with Jordan. I managed to slog through six or so of the Wheel of Time. While Martin's current work is definitely an "epic" it is nowhere near a "good vs evil" set. All of the characters have bad as well as good in them. The books are more like a sociopolitical drama. The fantastic elements at times almost fade away and you are left with character development amidst a chaotic power struggle. In addition, many of the characters who start out important wind up dead. In Jordan's works it seemed that the main characters survived. Of course, I did stop after the sixth book or so. warbi From Gaertk at aol.com Thu Feb 19 14:53:52 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 17:53:52 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven Message-ID: <7B46FFAE.4D209B00.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/19/2004 11:32:11 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Warlord" writes: [Verra is Vlad's mother?] > This thought occurred to me as well, so I was *very* > interested, not to mentioned surprised, when I found out > she did not know about spellbreaker, because that means THE > task(s) she has in mind for him is unrelated. This > intrigues. Time is strange in her realm... the Verra surprised by Spellbreaker in _Issola_ may be a "younger" Verra than the one who sees SB in _Phoenix_ (I can't remember any other time SB was visible to Verra). And that could explain why the latter thinks that 500 years have passed since the Interregnum. --KG From warlord at dragon.com Thu Feb 19 14:50:46 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 17:50:46 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040219223144.89781.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Spoilers below, be ye warned. ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` > -----Original Message----- > From: Kenneth Stone [mailto:knots4kcs at yahoo.com] > Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 5:32 PM > To: dragaera > Subject: RE: Question for THE Steven > > > > Issola. > > > > W > > What specifically? > ------------- When it coils up like a snake in the Halls of Judgement. At that moment she either recognizes it as a great weapon, or, realizes *which* great weapon it it destined to be. > > Possible Kiera Spoiler!! > * > * > * > * > * > * > * > * > * > * > * > * > * > >ISTR that she's surprised when > >she first sees it, which must > >be in _Taltos_. I suppose she > >could just be surprised that > >Vlad has it *already*. Or she > >could have not put two and two > >together, or she could be > >acting. (It strikes as very > >likely, though not certain, > >that she's acting later in > >_Taltos_, during the discussion > >of who's going to leave the Paths.) > > > >JF > > I agree with the latter, > particularly because I think its > Verra's blood (the blood of a > god(dess?)) that Kiera gave to Vlad. > > Remember that Sethra was once offered > God-hood? And she's a vampire? So I > think the blood was the offer of god- > hood (Which she "gave" to Kiera, and > Kiera gave to Vlad). I think Aliera, > Morrolan, and possibly Vlad now all > have a little god-hood in them. > Now that is a fascinating theory. I like it. W Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. --H. G. Wells From Gaertk at aol.com Thu Feb 19 15:14:47 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 18:14:47 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <68F5CFDB.6E8A1F60.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/19/2004 3:59:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bradford Holden writes: > Quoting dragaera-digest-help at dragaera.info > (dragaera-digest-help at dragaera.info): That's one odd attrib line... > I am puzzled as to what Jordan and Brust have in common. >?One writes long complicated epics about good versus evil. >?The other writes books with sardonic protagonists > undergoing journeys of self-discovery. ?At least that is > how I see it. ? Firstly, this post only refers to the first 4-6 books of the Wheel of Time, when RJ actually seemed to know what he was doing. But RJ and SKZB have memorable characters in a large, vivid world. Both have a considerable amount of *original* Cool Stuff. And most importantly, both actively encourage people to re-read, analyse, and nit-pick the books, thanks to all the information that's concealed from the reader. Despite what he's come to, I think Jordan deserves some credit for pioneering the Big Complex (aka Doorstop) Fantasy sub-genre. Without him, I imagine Martin would have had trouble finding a publisher for his Song of Ice and Fire, and we'd probably miss out completely on Erikson and Hobb (though she could continue writing as Lindholm and not make any money). --KG From gomi at speakeasy.net Thu Feb 19 15:22:10 2004 From: gomi at speakeasy.net (Gomi no Sensei) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 15:22:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <68F5CFDB.6E8A1F60.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/19/2004 3:59:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bradford Holden writes: > > But RJ and SKZB have memorable characters in a large, vivid > world. Both have a considerable amount of *original* Cool > Stuff. And most importantly, both actively encourage people > to re-read, analyse, and nit-pick the books, thanks to all > the information that's concealed from the reader. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. There are no characters at all in RJ's WoT series. pe ...did you mean the dialogue-spouting cardboard cutouts? From Randi128 at aol.com Thu Feb 19 16:06:45 2004 From: Randi128 at aol.com (Randi128 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 19:06:45 EST Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <84.22b0d33c.2d66a995@aol.com> In a message dated 02/19/2004 6:30:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, gomi at speakeasy.net writes: > In a message dated 2/19/2004 3:59:57 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bradford > Holden writes: > > > > But RJ and SKZB have memorable characters in a large, vivid > > world. Both have a considerable amount of *original* Cool > > Stuff. And most importantly, both actively encourage people > > to re-read, analyse, and nit-pick the books, thanks to all > > the information that's concealed from the reader. > > I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. There are no characters at all > in RJ's WoT series. > > pe > ...did you mean the dialogue-spouting cardboard cutouts? > Didn't any of you read my post???? This issue was beat to death already. See previous archives under RJ. This is exactly what happened last time RJ was discussed on this list. This is a Steven Brust mailing list, not The Robert Jordan bashing list. You guys don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. John D. Barbato, OD From mneme at io.com Thu Feb 19 16:16:18 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 18:16:18 -0600 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <68F5CFDB.6E8A1F60.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <68F5CFDB.6E8A1F60.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <16437.20946.221529.562432@fnord.io.com> Gaertk at aol.com writes: >trouble finding a publisher for his Song of Ice and Fire, and >we'd probably miss out completely on Erikson and Hobb (though >she could continue writing as Lindholm and not make any >money). Eh -- I think Hobb's just writing traditional SF/Fantasy trilogy, with recognizable beginnings and endings, and doing just fine with it. See Clayton's body of work, or numerous trilogies. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From gomi at speakeasy.net Thu Feb 19 16:16:00 2004 From: gomi at speakeasy.net (Gomi no Sensei) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:16:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <84.22b0d33c.2d66a995@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Randi128 at aol.com wrote: > Didn't any of you read my post???? This issue was beat to death already. See > previous archives under RJ. This is exactly what happened last time RJ was > discussed on this list. This is a Steven Brust mailing list, not The Robert > Jordan bashing list. You guys don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. There, there. It'll all be better soon. pe obBrust: devera devera devera From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Feb 19 16:21:25 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:21:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: archives question (was, aborted RJ flamewar) In-Reply-To: <84.22b0d33c.2d66a995@aol.com> References: <84.22b0d33c.2d66a995@aol.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Randi128 at aol.com wrote: > Didn't any of you read my post???? This issue was beat to death already. See > previous archives under RJ. So I go to the dragaera search, put in Jordan, click on say: http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/3085 - but all the arrows etc lead me directly to http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/archive.cgi?1:dds:5684#b I'm running a fairly recent mozilla on RH9. - Philip From davids at kithrup.com Thu Feb 19 16:56:42 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:56:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: archives question (was, aborted RJ flamewar) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: >On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Randi128 at aol.com wrote: > >So I go to the dragaera search, put in Jordan, click on say: >http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/3085 >- but all the arrows etc lead me directly to >http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi/1/archive.cgi?1:dds:5684#b > >I'm running a fairly recent mozilla on RH9. > Didn't I mention this already? [...Checks...] Yes, I did: http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi?1:mss:11178 I also note that nothing past 11/09/2003 appears to be indexed (in that a "dragaerasearch" brings up no hits on posts after that date). From Gaertk at aol.com Thu Feb 19 18:00:19 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 21:00:19 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <5073B649.6D941036.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/19/2004 7:16:18 PM Eastern Standard Time, Joshua Kronengold writes: > Gaertk at aol.com writes: >> trouble finding a publisher for his Song of Ice and Fire, >> and we'd probably miss out completely on Erikson and Hobb >> (though she could continue writing as Lindholm and not >> make any money). > > Eh -- I think Hobb's just writing traditional SF/Fantasy > trilogy, with recognizable beginnings and endings, and > doing just fine with it. > > See Clayton's body of work, or numerous trilogies. I haven't read Clayton, and I'm having trouble finding examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was published before 1990? (And I believe "trilogy" is the wrong word for what we're talking about, but I can't remember the right one.) --KG From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Feb 19 18:15:26 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 18:15:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <5073B649.6D941036.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <5073B649.6D941036.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: Spoiler for Gene Wolfe's Book of The New Sun: On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > published before 1990? The Book of the New Sun. From dd-b at dd-b.net Thu Feb 19 18:21:05 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 20:21:05 -0600 Subject: archives question In-Reply-To: (David Silberstein's message of "Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:56:42 -0800 (PST)") References: Message-ID: David Silberstein writes: > I also note that nothing past 11/09/2003 appears to be indexed (in > that a "dragaerasearch" brings up no hits on posts after that date). Yeah, I really need to automate that. But it was so slow last time that I'm still dodging the issue. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Thu Feb 19 18:26:10 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 18:26:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <5073B649.6D941036.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <20040220022610.18612.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> --- Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/19/2004 7:16:18 PM Eastern Standard Time, Joshua > Kronengold writes: > > > Gaertk at aol.com writes: > >> trouble finding a publisher for his Song of Ice and Fire, > >> and we'd probably miss out completely on Erikson and Hobb > >> (though she could continue writing as Lindholm and not > >> make any money). > > > > Eh -- I think Hobb's just writing traditional SF/Fantasy > > trilogy, with recognizable beginnings and endings, and > > doing just fine with it. > > > > See Clayton's body of work, or numerous trilogies. > > I haven't read Clayton, and I'm having trouble finding > examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > published before 1990? _Lord of the Rings_ (Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli, and some frammed narrative by Gandalf, among others). I think also _The Chronicles of Narnia_ and _Gormenghast_, but I'm not sure. As for Hobb, the number of points of view doesn't seem to be crucial. At least, I remember only one in the _Assassin_ books. But I've been wrong before. > (And I believe "trilogy" is the wrong word for what we're > talking about, but I can't remember the right one.) Three-volume novel? Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From nthuleen at students.wisc.edu Thu Feb 19 19:23:44 2004 From: nthuleen at students.wisc.edu (Nancy Thuleen) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 21:23:44 -0600 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: At 21:00 -0500 19.2.2004, Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/19/2004 7:16:18 PM Eastern Standard Time, > Joshua Kronengold writes: > > > Eh -- I think Hobb's just writing traditional SF/Fantasy > > trilogy, with recognizable beginnings and endings, and > > doing just fine with it. > > > > See Clayton's body of work, or numerous trilogies. > > I haven't read Clayton, and I'm having trouble finding > examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > published before 1990? I'm not sure about the "6 points of view" criterion -- does Hobb really have that many points of view (and are we talking about Farseer or the Liveship series or both?), but Katherine Kurtz's Deryni series started in the early 70s and is still going; it centers around four or five characters but does include scenes from the antagonists' points of view and numerous minor characters. Hers are trilogies, but grouped together kind of the way Hobb's are, each centered around a storyline but part of a longer arc. MZB's Darkover series? Haven't read enough of those to know about points-of-view, and I know some people dispute the SF-vs-F quality. Same with McCaffrey's Pern. I like Hobb's work a lot, but it doesn't strike me as anything far beyond a traditional fantasy series. Higher quality than many, but still traditional. (I haven't read Clayton, so can't comment on that, and only read the first Song of Ice and Fire book.) - Nancy. From stikjok at hotmail.com Thu Feb 19 19:31:39 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 03:31:39 +0000 Subject: Flying Ships (was Reliability and POV) Message-ID: > > #Speaking of mostly-unrelated tangents, can dragons fly in Dragaera? >I've > > #yet to find a reference to a "dragon wing" (well, other than as part of >the > > #Imperial Palace) > > > > I don't think so. We meet one in BP and one in (damn, gotta dig them > > books outta the boxes and reread, been too long: is it Jhereg or > > Taltos?!), and neither one flies. > >There are at least three sightings. BP, Taltos, and Issola. > >Although, since the dragon in Issola is Devera, maybe it doesn't >count. :) > >-Jot The dragon at the end fight was Devera?!?! Man, this is what I get for joining the list late.... Dave _________________________________________________________________ Take off on a romantic weekend or a family adventure to these great U.S. locations. http://special.msn.com/local/hotdestinations.armx From stikjok at hotmail.com Thu Feb 19 19:29:05 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 03:29:05 +0000 Subject: Seen the other night.... Message-ID: >From: "warbi" >To: >Subject: Re: Seen the other night.... >Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:20:28 -0800 > > > > If you like Robert Jordan you might like: > > George R. R. Martin > > Terry Goodkind (caveat emptor) > > Terry Brooks > > J. R. R. Tolkien (Cart...horse...) > > > > and maybe some equivalent epic space opera > > > > David Brin > > E. E. "Doc" Smith > > > > but Steven Brust? I guess they both (sometimes) write books about > > guys with long pointy metal things. I hate to think what would happen > > if the Jordan fan picked up the recently reissued "Cowboy Feng's Space > > Bar and Grille" expecting complicated epic fantasy. > > > > They seem really different to me. Hence the clean up in the SF and >Fantasy > > aisle. > > > > -- > > Bradford Holden > > "And goalies can only play net wearing an apron and holding a live > > largemouth bass." > > - One of John Buccigross's suggestions for improving the NHL. > > > I wouldn't put Martin in with Jordan. I managed to slog through six or >so >of the Wheel of Time. While Martin's current work is definitely an "epic" >it is nowhere near a "good vs evil" set. All of the characters have bad as >well as good in them. The books are more like a sociopolitical drama. The >fantastic elements at times almost fade away and you are left with >character >development amidst a chaotic power struggle. In addition, many of the >characters who start out important wind up dead. In Jordan's works it >seemed that the main characters survived. Of course, I did stop after the >sixth book or so. warbi > Ditto! George is one of my fav writers, from way back when he wrote _Tuf Voyaging_ and wrote and produced the Beauty and the Beast series. Then came _Wild Cards_ and he rocked my world. I think I remember a steamship/vampire book called _Fevre Dream_ ... the list goes on. He knows how to write, not just ramble... _________________________________________________________________ Watch high-quality video with fast playback at MSN Video. Free! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200365ave/direct/01/ From bryann at bryann.net Thu Feb 19 22:00:21 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 00:00:21 -0600 Subject: A-Team Shard Message-ID: So, I think I found another Shard... Issola, hardcover, pg 216 - "I love it when a plan comes together." As I recall, this line made an appearance in virtually every A-Team episode ever filmed... don't ask me how I know this. Please. Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you... - William Munny, Unforgiven (1992) From pulmon at comcast.net Fri Feb 20 04:19:36 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 07:19:36 -0500 Subject: Flying Dragons Message-ID: <0C911C32-639F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> There is one piece of Issola that I thought I understood, but if it is true that dragons cannot fly, then what is going on? Possible Issola Spoilers (Let's make this a three asterisk pause) * * * p.233 ...and there was a tremendous flash of light from directly overhead that left me seeing spots just as I was wondering if I should get involved somehow... The air had that queer tang it gets after a heavy thunderstorm. "What was that Loiosh?" "Something from that guy overhead, I think, Boss." "Good. Did it accomplish anything?" "I don't know. But one of them is down." I saw it then--one of the Jenoine was down indeed, and wouldn't be getting up again, and there was no mystery about what had taken it out: the dragon was holding it down with two paws and tearing chunks out of the thing with its teeth... So, what was overhead if not the dragon? There is no mention of any other entity flying around. Also, as to the identity of the Dragon as Devera (and I am aware of certain ex cathedra comments): Since "Mommy isn't allowed to know" about Devera's existence, what explains Sethra's comment to Aliera that she should know who the dragon was? Ken Gorelick From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Fri Feb 20 04:47:26 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 07:47:26 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <557567C4-6272-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> References: <20040218200005.6726.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> <52A6631E-625B-11D8-ACBC-000393D1260C@mac.com> <557567C4-6272-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040220124726.GC64848@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 07:27:00PM -0500, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > How about Optima font using small caps? That would be truly elegant... Lady Teldra would no doubt prefer her conversation be produced by hand-done calligraphy, preferably by the author. -- "Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up and continue as if nothing had happened." - Winston Churchill From scs at di.org Fri Feb 20 05:06:46 2004 From: scs at di.org (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:06:46 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040220130646.GH64848@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 10:58:48PM -0500, Mark A Mandel wrote: > Verra isn't out for a fun roll in the hay, she's out for revenge on the > Jenoine. She's a manipulative b***h with plenty of power and the > capability for very long-range planning . . . Mark, I respectfully disagree on most of the point in those sentences. I think that's what Verra *wants* us to think, but her actions don't support it. A few backing examples: Verra started the war with Greenaire (sp?) and generated exactly the opposite of what she intended (not smart, not good short- or long-range planning). Manipulative, yes. Successfully? No. It apparently never occured to the Gods that a new, undefended source of amorphia would be useful. Verra isn't out for revenge on the Jenoine. Never once have we seen her do anything except *react* to their actions. Never once have we even see her plan anything. And when action comes to the cusp, who's on the front lines? Sethra, Vlad, the Necromancer, Devera. Verra's a ways back in the ranks. Frankly, I think the Gods are trying to lay low as much as they can. As I've stated earlier, IMHO Sethra was returned after her death because she's the best anti-Jenoine force there is. Which, you will note, puts her ahead of most or all of the gods on being manipulative, doing long-range planning, etc, etc. You don't have to be bright to be a God. You just have to manifest in more than one place at a time and not be subject to the will of another. Sounds like most kittens I know. From mtiller at ntlworld.com Fri Feb 20 05:33:54 2004 From: mtiller at ntlworld.com (mtiller at ntlworld.com) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:33:54 +0000 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <20040220133428.VEGF10961.mta07-svc.ntlworld.com@mta7-svc> > --- Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 2/19/2004 7:16:18 PM Eastern Standard Time, Joshua > > Kronengold writes: > > you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > > published before 1990? Probably the most POV's I've read was Heinlein's "Number of the Beast" with 5 Cheers Mark ----------------------------------------- Email provided by http://www.ntlhome.com/ From scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us Fri Feb 20 04:48:50 2004 From: scs at lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 07:48:50 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040220124850.GD64848@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 11:58:38AM -0800, David Silberstein wrote: > [ includes spoilers, skip now if you haven't read /Issola/ ] > But Lady Teldra wouldn't say anything that *deserved* a "shut up". > Loiosh is snarky. Lady Teldra is unfailingly polite. Lady Teldra knows when and how to respond in a way that is locally appropriate rather than polite. This argues that at some point she'll tell both Loiosh and Vlad to shut up. -- "Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up and continue as if nothing had happened." - Winston Churchill From skzb at dreamcafe.com Fri Feb 20 05:41:11 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (skzb) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 05:41:11 -0800 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) References: <5073B649.6D941036.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <007601c3f7b7$33e5cd40$f900000a@theaddiction2> > Spoiler for Gene Wolfe's Book of The New Sun: > > > > > > > > On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > > examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > > you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > > published before 1990? > > The Book of the New Sun. Uh...that was one ponit of view, first person from Sevarian. From skzb at dreamcafe.com Fri Feb 20 05:43:48 2004 From: skzb at dreamcafe.com (skzb) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 05:43:48 -0800 Subject: A-Team Shard References: Message-ID: <00c101c3f7b7$9177a8c0$f900000a@theaddiction2> > So, I think I found another Shard... Issola, hardcover, pg 216 - "I love it > when a plan comes together." > > As I recall, this line made an appearance in virtually every A-Team episode > ever filmed... don't ask me how I know this. Please. > Feh. It goes back a lot further than that. I have yet to see a single episode of A-team. From pulmon at comcast.net Fri Feb 20 06:07:46 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:07:46 -0500 Subject: Issola In-Reply-To: <20040220124726.GC64848@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <20040218200005.6726.qmail@web21408.mail.yahoo.com> <52A6631E-625B-11D8-ACBC-000393D1260C@mac.com> <557567C4-6272-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <20040220124726.GC64848@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: <2889106B-63AE-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 20, 2004, at 7:47 AM, Steve Simmons wrote: > On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 07:27:00PM -0500, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > >> How about Optima font using small caps? That would be truly elegant... > > Lady Teldra would no doubt prefer her conversation be produced by > hand-done calligraphy, preferably by the author. > -- > "Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick > themselves up and continue as if nothing had happened." > - Winston Churchill > > Why say that? She is the soul of courtesy, not snobbery. No, her strength is that she will make Steve DESIRE to represent her thoughts in hand-done calligrapy, to be courteous to her! Ken Gorelick From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 07:23:55 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 07:23:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <0C911C32-639F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040220152355.33637.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> --- Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > There is one piece of Issola that I thought I > understood, but if it is > true that dragons cannot fly, then what is going on? > > Possible Issola Spoilers > > > > (Let's make this a three asterisk pause) > > > > > > > * > > > > * > > > > * > > > > p.233 > ...and there was a tremendous flash of light from > directly overhead > that left me seeing spots just as I was wondering if > I should get > involved somehow... The air had that queer tang it > gets after a heavy > thunderstorm. > "What was that Loiosh?" > "Something from that guy overhead, I think, Boss." > "Good. Did it accomplish anything?" > "I don't know. But one of them is down." > I saw it then--one of the Jenoine was down indeed, > and wouldn't be > getting up again, and there was no mystery about > what had taken it out: > the dragon was holding it down with two paws and > tearing chunks out of > the thing with its teeth... > > So, what was overhead if not the dragon? There is no > mention of any > other entity flying around. > > Also, as to the identity of the Dragon as Devera > (and I am aware of > certain ex cathedra comments): Since "Mommy isn't > allowed to know" > about Devera's existence, what explains Sethra's > comment to Aliera that > she should know who the dragon was? > > > Ken Gorelick > Early in the fight there is a god in the form of a dark cloud above the Jenoine: ------------------- Issola, Chap 15 There was even someone or something above the Jenoine--at least, there seemed to be a hovering sort of darkness about fifty feet up that appeared thick enough to either contain something sentient, or perhaps even to be something sentient, though if it was it was nothing I wanted to get to know ? --------------------- I know I like dragons to fly, but there is something else up there. As to the Devera/Dragon thing, I always assumed that it was the same dragon from the paths of the dead, and any recognition would come from that. Recall that Steve said that nobody was anybody else. I don't understand where the whole Dragon-Devera thing started. Please help? Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 07:34:09 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 07:34:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040220153409.92382.qmail@web21412.mail.yahoo.com> --- Warlord wrote: > Spoilers below, be ye warned. > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > ` > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Kenneth Stone [mailto:knots4kcs at yahoo.com] > > Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 5:32 PM > > To: dragaera > > Subject: RE: Question for THE Steven > > > > > > > Issola. > > > > > > W > > > > What specifically? > > ------------- > > When it coils up like a snake in the Halls of > Judgement. > At that moment she either recognizes it as a great > weapon, > or, realizes *which* great weapon it it destined to > be. I always assumed that it was about to kill her (or "prevent her from manifesting herself" in that place) and she was just afraid of it. > > > > > Possible Kiera Spoiler!! > > * > > * > > * > > * > > * > > * > > * > > * > > * > > * > > * > > * > > * > > >ISTR that she's surprised when > > >she first sees it, which must > > >be in _Taltos_. I suppose she > > >could just be surprised that > > >Vlad has it *already*. Or she > > >could have not put two and two > > >together, or she could be > > >acting. (It strikes as very > > >likely, though not certain, > > >that she's acting later in > > >_Taltos_, during the discussion > > >of who's going to leave the Paths.) > > > > > >JF > > > > I agree with the latter, > > particularly because I think its > > Verra's blood (the blood of a > > god(dess?)) that Kiera gave to Vlad. > > > > Remember that Sethra was once offered > > God-hood? And she's a vampire? So I > > think the blood was the offer of god- > > hood (Which she "gave" to Kiera, and > > Kiera gave to Vlad). I think Aliera, > > Morrolan, and possibly Vlad now all > > have a little god-hood in them. > > > > Now that is a fascinating theory. I like it. > > W > > Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. > --H. G. Wells > Furthermore, I suspect that Sethra was given a choice "God-hood or Morrolan". I think it was "dangerous for her to keep it" was because she is 1. a vampire 2. tempted by god-hood. Also, I kinda think of Sethra as "Verra the Younger". Role-playing is god-hood for the masses. (multiple places at once) :-) Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html From mneme at io.com Fri Feb 20 07:39:48 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:39:48 -0600 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <20040220152355.33637.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> References: <0C911C32-639F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <20040220152355.33637.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <16438.10820.404559.782399@fnord.io.com> Kenneth Stone writes: >As to the Devera/Dragon thing, I always >assumed that it was the same dragon from >the paths of the dead, and any recognition >would come from that. Recall that Steve >said that nobody was anybody else. Um. Right. This was in reference to speculation about one character being Mario, or Piro, or whatnot, not about Devera sightings. >I don't understand where the whole >Dragon-Devera thing started. Please >help? It's been pretty well proven (as well as confirmed by skzb); remember, among other things, the equivalence of gesture between the Dragon and Aliera. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From warlord at dragon.com Fri Feb 20 07:51:46 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 10:51:46 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <20040220022610.18612.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Jerry Friedman [mailto:jerry_friedman at yahoo.com] > Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:26 PM > To: Gaertk at aol.com; dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) > > > --- Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 2/19/2004 7:16:18 PM Eastern Standard Time, Joshua > > Kronengold writes: > > > > > Gaertk at aol.com writes: > > >> trouble finding a publisher for his Song of Ice and Fire, > > >> and we'd probably miss out completely on Erikson and Hobb > > >> (though she could continue writing as Lindholm and not > > >> make any money). > > > > > > Eh -- I think Hobb's just writing traditional SF/Fantasy > > > trilogy, with recognizable beginnings and endings, and > > > doing just fine with it. > > > > > > See Clayton's body of work, or numerous trilogies. > > > > I haven't read Clayton, and I'm having trouble finding > > examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > > you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > > published before 1990? > > _Lord of the Rings_ (Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, > Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli, and some frammed narrative by Gandalf, > among others). I think also _The Chronicles of Narnia_ and > _Gormenghast_, but I'm not sure. > > As for Hobb, the number of points of view doesn't seem to be > crucial. At least, I remember only one in the _Assassin_ > books. But I've been wrong before. > > > (And I believe "trilogy" is the wrong word for what we're > > talking about, but I can't remember the right one.) > > Three-volume novel? > Isn't the number three a variable in the literary world? "After the fourth book in the trilogy, he can write a prequel" W Clip-clop..clip-clop....Clip-clop... (Amish drive-by shunning) From books at bofh.com Fri Feb 20 07:53:52 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:53:52 -0700 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <20040220152355.33637.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> References: <0C911C32-639F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <20040220152355.33637.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040220155352.GA1129@bofh.com> > As to the Devera/Dragon thing, I always > assumed that it was the same dragon from > the paths of the dead, and any recognition > would come from that. Recall that Steve > said that nobody was anybody else. A long time ago, someone said (and I paraphrase) "I think that dragon might be Devera" To which Steven replied with (and again I paraphrase) "Give that person a cigar" Thus making it canonical. I don't think that Devera showing up as a dragon violates Steven's statements about noone being anyone else. As I recall, Vlad is admonished in _Taltos_ by Devera not to tell her mom (Aliera) about her. He then goes on to say "I met your daughter". I presume it's a well known fact by _Issola_, even if she isn't born. (Regrettably I'm AFB, and Taltos isn't in the book search, so I can't provide a textev for that, just my own failing memory) -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From lister at insaneninjahero.com Fri Feb 20 08:06:11 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:06:11 -0800 Subject: Robert Jordan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <40363073.9010202@insaneninjahero.com> Warlord wrote: >> >>>(And I believe "trilogy" is the wrong word for what we're >>>talking about, but I can't remember the right one.) >> >>Three-volume novel? >> > > > Isn't the number three a variable in the literary world? > "After the fourth book in the trilogy, he can write a prequel" > > W > > Clip-clop..clip-clop....Clip-clop... (Amish drive-by shunning) > The late, great, Douglas Adams, if I recall, used "trilogy" in as loose a sense as possible. Derrill From pulmon at comcast.net Fri Feb 20 08:04:41 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:04:41 -0500 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <20040220155352.GA1129@bofh.com> References: <0C911C32-639F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <20040220152355.33637.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> <20040220155352.GA1129@bofh.com> Message-ID: <7DA59C1E-63BE-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 20, 2004, at 10:53 AM, Jot Powers wrote: >> As to the Devera/Dragon thing, I always >> assumed that it was the same dragon from >> the paths of the dead, and any recognition >> would come from that. Recall that Steve >> said that nobody was anybody else. > > A long time ago, someone said (and I paraphrase) > > "I think that dragon might be Devera" > > To which Steven replied with (and again I paraphrase) > > "Give that person a cigar" > > Thus making it canonical. > > I don't think that Devera showing up as a dragon violates > Steven's statements about noone being anyone else. > > As I recall, Vlad is admonished in _Taltos_ by Devera > not to tell her mom (Aliera) about her. He then goes > on to say "I met your daughter". I presume it's a > well known fact by _Issola_, even if she isn't born. > > (Regrettably I'm AFB, and Taltos isn't in the book search, > so I can't provide a textev for that, just my own failing > memory) > > -Jot > -- > Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ > "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" > -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan > > Of course, "Give the man a cigar" is NOT equivalent to "yes, that is correct". It could have been sarcastic, misleading, or short for "kitty cigar". As we know, the omnipotent and omniscient may also be omnicapricious... From pulmon at comcast.net Fri Feb 20 08:02:45 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:02:45 -0500 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <20040220152355.33637.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040220152355.33637.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <38C8A61E-63BE-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 20, 2004, at 10:23 AM, Kenneth Stone wrote: >> >> Ken Gorelick >> > > Early in the fight there is a god in the > form of a dark cloud above the Jenoine: > ------------------- > Issola, Chap 15 > > There was even someone or something > above the Jenoine--at least, there > seemed to be a hovering sort of > darkness about fifty feet up that > appeared thick enough to either > contain something sentient, or perhaps > even to be something sentient, though > if it was it was nothing I wanted to get > to know > > --------------------- > I know I like dragons to fly, but there > is something else up there. > > As to the Devera/Dragon thing, I always > assumed that it was the same dragon from > the paths of the dead, and any recognition > would come from that. Recall that Steve > said that nobody was anybody else. > > I don't understand where the whole > Dragon-Devera thing started. Please > help? > > Ken > > You are, of course, correct. I do not see how I missed that in my 15+ reads of Issola! I found another shard, btw. Issola, ch 15 p 227: -Do you do everything they do, Boss? -Sure -If they all jumped into the Sea of Amorphia, would you do that, too? I KNOW that came from my mother, circa 1960. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Feb 20 08:50:46 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:50:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <007601c3f7b7$33e5cd40$f900000a@theaddiction2> References: <5073B649.6D941036.00048EA6@aol.com> <007601c3f7b7$33e5cd40$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, skzb wrote: > > > > Spoiler for Gene Wolfe's Book of The New Sun: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > > > > examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > > > you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > > > published before 1990? > > > > The Book of the New Sun. > > Uh...that was one ponit of view, first person from Sevarian. I freely admit the above answer was rather snarky. But Severian doesn't exactly have one point of view, given that he's a combination of the original Severian, Thecla, the autarch, the previous autarch, a white hole ... Chapter XXXV of _The Citadel_ gives some evidence he's not an alloy but a composite. I wonder if Vlad will have a unified POV - at the end of _Issola_ the Necromancer is already wondering who's running the show... From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 08:54:52 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:54:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <20040220152355.33637.qmail@web21401.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040220165452.66085.qmail@web14427.mail.yahoo.com> --- Kenneth Stone wrote: ... > As to the Devera/Dragon thing, I always > assumed that it was the same dragon from > the paths of the dead, and any recognition > would come from that. Recall that Steve > said that nobody was anybody else. > > I don't understand where the whole > Dragon-Devera thing started. Please > help? >From rasfw: or . [Begin quotation.] From: Steven Brust (skzb at dreamcafe.com) Subject: Re: Great Weapons again (Re: Issola Comments/Spoilers ) View: Complete Thread (109 articles) Original Format Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 2001-07-18 20:12:48 PST Damien Raphael Sullivan wrote: > >chapter 2 of _Jhereg_) and the Empire wrongly concludes that Mario did > >a certain assassination (page 192 in TBoJ; end of chapter 2 in _Yendi_). > > No, the Imperial investigators said "Mario did it". This could easily be > analogous to "Act of God" on an insurance claim. Basically "we don't know", > as opposed to "that specific Mario guy we're looking for". Good catch. Damien Raphael Sullivan wrote: > >Speaking of gods, just who/what was that dragon?? > > Monty Ashley, originator of the Devera FAQ, suggests it's Devera. Monty wins the bannana. [End quotation.] If I ever said or did anything that annoyed you, Steven, you have just had your revenge, because I could *not* figure out why I couldn't find this quotation with Google Groups. Until I figured out that it was the typo in "banana". Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From bio_phy at hotmail.com Fri Feb 20 09:22:59 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:22:59 -0600 Subject: Robert Jordan Message-ID: >From: Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert >The late, great, Douglas Adams, if I recall, used "trilogy" in as loose a >sense as possible. > >Derrill You mean the bit about "the fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately titled Hitchiker's Trilogy"? ;) _________________________________________________________________ Watch high-quality video with fast playback at MSN Video. Free! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200365ave/direct/01/ From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 20 10:47:29 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:47:29 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <20040220022610.18612.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: #--- Gaertk at aol.com wrote: #> #> I haven't read Clayton, and I'm having trouble finding #> examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can #> you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was #> published before 1990? # #_Lord of the Rings_ (Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, #Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli, and some frammed narrative by Gandalf, #among others). I think also _The Chronicles of Narnia_ and #_Gormenghast_, but I'm not sure. LotR is not a series; it is a single book that was published in three physical volumes. (Here's the test: Can you pick up any book in the set and read it as a whole?) I'm not sure about Gormenghast. The Narnia Chronicles, definitely a series with multiple POVs. #> (And I believe "trilogy" is the wrong word for what we're #> talking about, but I can't remember the right one.) # #Three-volume novel? LotR & such? "Three-decker" has often been used. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 20 10:44:39 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:44:39 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: #On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: # #> examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can #> you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was #> published before 1990? The Biography of Manuel, comprising almost all the fantasy works of James Branch Cabell [1879-1958] http://www.violetbooks.com/cabell.html -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 20 10:59:26 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:59:26 -0500 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <38C8A61E-63BE-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: #I found another shard, btw. Issola, ch 15 p 227: #-Do you do everything they do, Boss? #-Sure #-If they all jumped into the Sea of Amorphia, would you do that, too? # #I KNOW that came from my mother, circa 1960. And everyone else's... -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 20 10:58:30 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:58:30 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Warlord wrote: #Isn't the number three a variable in the literary world? #"After the fourth book in the trilogy, he can write a prequel" Only in jest, I hope. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 20 10:54:57 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:54:57 -0500 Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040220130646.GH64848@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: #On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 10:58:48PM -0500, Mark A Mandel wrote: # #> Verra isn't out for a fun roll in the hay, she's out for revenge on the #> Jenoine. She's a manipulative b***h with plenty of power and the #> capability for very long-range planning . . . # #Mark, I respectfully disagree on most of the point in those sentences. #I think that's what Verra *wants* us to think, but her actions don't #support it. A few backing examples: Whee! A good, rollicking argument (with the necessary respect for persons)!!! #Verra started the war with Greenaire (sp?) and generated exactly the #opposite of what she intended (not smart, not good short- or long-range #planning). Manipulative, yes. Successfully? No. True. (Greenare, I think; AFB.) #It apparently never occured to the Gods that a new, undefended source #of amorphia would be useful. True. By "capability for very long-range planning" I was thinking of lifespan (immortal?). #Verra isn't out for revenge on the Jenoine. Hmm... did I pick that up from someone's hypothesis here? #Never once have we seen her do anything except *react* to their #actions. Never once have we even see her plan anything. Would we expect to see her planning? We don't see that much of her, because Vlad doesn't. #And when action comes to the cusp, who's on the front lines? Sethra, #Vlad, the Necromancer, Devera. Verra's a ways back in the ranks. That can be fairly attributed to generalship (non-Dragon style) or manipulation. Was Eisenhower ever in front-line battle (as a General)? #Frankly, I think the Gods are trying to lay low as much as they can. That may very well be right. #As I've stated earlier, IMHO Sethra was returned after her death #because she's the best anti-Jenoine force there is. Which, you will #note, puts her ahead of most or all of the gods on being manipulative, #doing long-range planning, etc, etc. #You don't have to be bright to be a God. You just have to manifest #in more than one place at a time and not be subject to the will of #another. Sounds like most kittens I know. Heh! -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Feb 20 11:19:10 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:19:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040220130646.GH64848@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> References: <20040220130646.GH64848@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: > You don't have to be bright to be a God. I claim this as a corrolary of my thesis that heroism (here expressed as intelligence) is a conserved quantity in fiction. Vlad can't be the smartest if the gods are; in fact he can't be much of an interesting free agent if the gods have everything planned out. This it seems to me is one of the reasons the J are portrayed as essentially random - Vlad couldn't interact with them on any self-respecting basis if they were as smart as they really ought to be as evolved, ancient, scientific beings. From bryann at bryann.net Fri Feb 20 11:11:50 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:11:50 -0600 Subject: A-Team Shard In-Reply-To: <00c101c3f7b7$9177a8c0$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: > > So, I think I found another Shard... Issola, hardcover, pg 216 - "I love > it > > when a plan comes together." > > > > As I recall, this line made an appearance in virtually every A-Team > episode > > ever filmed... don't ask me how I know this. Please. > > > Feh. It goes back a lot further than that. I have yet to see a single > episode of A-team. D'oh... and here I was working out the relationship between all the A-Team members and the participants in the final battle there at the end of Issola... "The Dragaeran A-Team"... Damn, it was so appropriate, too: Every so often, there's a catch phrase from the movies or television that just seems to stick in your mind and be absolutely appropriate for certain situations. Arnold Schwarzenegger made, "I'll be back," famous. Then, of course, there are Clint Eastwood's immortal words, "Go ahead. Make my day." For me, the one that often seems to resonate just right is, "I love it when a plan comes together." I picture Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith of the A-Team, perfectly played by George Peppard with a sly smirk and a cigar jutting jauntily out of his mouth. He'd remark, "I love it when a plan comes together," right after a tough battle, where somehow he'd manage to make everything work, and the team, of course, came out victorious. - David Gewirtz, http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200103/ppeditorial0301001.html Bryan From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 11:48:25 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:48:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040220194825.34732.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: ... > #And when action comes to the cusp, who's on the front lines? Sethra, > #Vlad, the Necromancer, Devera. Verra's a ways back in the ranks. > > That can be fairly attributed to generalship (non-Dragon style) or > manipulation. Was Eisenhower ever in front-line battle (as a General)? ... Anyway, I don't think it's true. As I recall, Verra jumped on a Jenoine like a tag fighting in a brothel, or something. -- Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From davids at kithrup.com Fri Feb 20 11:44:45 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:44:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: A-Team Shard In-Reply-To: <00c101c3f7b7$9177a8c0$f900000a@theaddiction2> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, skzb wrote: >> So, I think I found another Shard... Issola, hardcover, pg 216 - >> "I love it when a plan comes together." >> >> As I recall, this line made an appearance in virtually every A-Team >> episode ever filmed... don't ask me how I know this. Please. >> >Feh. It goes back a lot further than that. I have yet to see a >single episode of A-team. Noble sir, I nearly think you will have to expand and elucidate. Alas, we poor uneducated and simple peons, long-suckled at the glass teat, [1] the boob tube, the phosphor-coated flask of emptiness [2] that receives the radio-frequency encoded pap sent from out of that place called Holly Wood, only know of the quotation under discussion >from its use on the television show which the previous poster had the honor (or is it the shame?) to refer to. So, I beg, I plead, I entreat and request for you to educate us: What is the true, original source of the abovementioned quote? Or at least, an earlier one than that show? [1] Which may have been used before Harlan Ellison used it, but that's where *I* got it from. [2] Projection TV screens were very rare, back in the day. My family certainly couldn't afford one. From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Fri Feb 20 11:42:37 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:42:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: (OT) Catch phrases that work (was:RE: A-Team Shard) Message-ID: <200402201942.i1KJgbg23844@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> "Bryan Newell" wrote: >Every so often, there's a catch phrase from the movies or television that > just seems to stick in your mind and be absolutely appropriate for certain > situations. Arnold Schwarzenegger made, "I'll be back," famous. Then, of > course, there are Clint Eastwood's immortal words, "Go ahead. Make my day." Heh. The one I find myself resisting to say at every opportunity: Speaker: "To make a long story short..." Me interjecting: "Too late!" >From "Clue", of course (at least, that's where I picked it up from). It's hard to resist, ya know? But when your boss gives the set-up.... Chris "Life is the nightmare that leaves its mark upon you in order to prove that it is, in fact, real." -Thomas Ligotti- 'The Sect of the Idiot' From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Feb 20 11:52:27 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:52:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040220194825.34732.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040220194825.34732.qmail@web14425.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > --- Mark A Mandel wrote: > > On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: > ... > > > #And when action comes to the cusp, who's on the front lines? Sethra, > > #Vlad, the Necromancer, Devera. Verra's a ways back in the ranks. > > > > That can be fairly attributed to generalship (non-Dragon style) or > > manipulation. Was Eisenhower ever in front-line battle (as a General)? > ... > > Anyway, I don't think it's true. As I recall, Verra jumped on a > Jenoine like a tag fighting in a brothel, or something. Corrolary: Verra has to be humiliated to make Sethra more heroic... From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 11:50:37 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:50:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040220195037.68422.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> --- Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > > #--- Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > #> > #> I haven't read Clayton, and I'm having trouble finding > #> examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > #> you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > #> published before 1990? > # > #_Lord of the Rings_ (Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, > #Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli, and some frammed narrative by Gandalf, > #among others). I think also _The Chronicles of Narnia_ and > #_Gormenghast_, but I'm not sure. > > LotR is not a series; it is a single book that was published in three > physical volumes. (Here's the test: Can you pick up any book in the > set and read it as a whole?) ... Yabbut, Konrad was specifically asking for comparison with Robert Jordan. I assure you, that's a single book that's being published in n physical volumes. -- Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From warlord at dragon.com Fri Feb 20 12:05:50 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:05:50 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark A Mandel [mailto:mam at theworld.com] > Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 1:59 PM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: RE: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) > > > On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Warlord wrote: > > #Isn't the number three a variable in the literary world? > #"After the fourth book in the trilogy, he can write a prequel" > > Only in jest, I hope. > Well, a little snarky at least. W Give me ambiguity or give me something else From mike.melton at cox.net Fri Feb 20 12:02:09 2004 From: mike.melton at cox.net (Mike Melton) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:02:09 -0500 Subject: (OT) Catch phrases that work (was:RE: A-Team Shard) Message-ID: <20040220200209.IWOI24575.lakemtao06.cox.net@smtp.central.cox.net> > Heh. The one I find myself resisting to > say at every opportunity: > > Speaker: "To make a long story short..." > Me interjecting: "Too late!" > > From "Clue", of course (at least, that's where > I picked it up from). Truly, one of the most brilliant (and quotable) movies of our time. The dialog was top-notch -- that movie would have been as funny as a radio show. An all-time favorite. (If you like "Clue", see "Noises Off". Trust me.) "Why would he threaten to kill you in public?" "I think she meant he threatened, in public, to kill her." ... and now I return to obscurity. (Just had to pipe up for a "Clue" reference.) Mike From casey at the-bat.net Fri Feb 20 12:15:18 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:15:18 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <5073B649.6D941036.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: KG wrote: > I haven't read Clayton, and I'm having trouble finding > examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > published before 1990? Without looking at my bookshelves, (which are chock full of 80's and earlier fantasy)... Peirs Anthony Xanth (yeah, not very literary, but...) Immortals (OK, maybe only 5 POV's but I think one or two books might have had multiple POV) Tolkein Middle-Earth (i.e. taken as a collective whole. Sure LotR, is one novel in three parts, but there's a lot more than just LotR.) Donaldson Covenant chronicles McCaffrey Pern. Heck, Dragonriders and Dragonsingers had that many POV's in each. It isn't until the tail end of The White Dragon that she reveals a true SF component. Bradley Darkover. A rambling series, not Doorstop volumes, but many POVs if only because it's multigenerational. Part SF, part fantasy. As for Doorstoppers, how about Eddings' Belgariad/Mallorean. A few volumes post 1990. And last, but certainly far from least, how about Zelazny's Amber! (not trilogies, and it's been a while since I read 'em so I may be misremembering the POV count but ...) From mklahn at mac.com Fri Feb 20 12:13:51 2004 From: mklahn at mac.com (Matthew Klahn) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 14:13:51 -0600 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <0C911C32-639F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> References: <0C911C32-639F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4CBCAFF2-63E1-11D8-9722-000393D1260C@mac.com> On Feb 20, 2004, at 6:19 , Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > There is one piece of Issola that I thought I understood, but if it is > true that dragons cannot fly, then what is going on? > > Possible Issola Spoilers > > > > (Let's make this a three asterisk pause) > > > > > > > * > > > > * > > > > * > > > > p.233 > ...and there was a tremendous flash of light from directly overhead > that left me seeing spots just as I was wondering if I should get > involved somehow... The air had that queer tang it gets after a heavy > thunderstorm. > "What was that Loiosh?" > "Something from that guy overhead, I think, Boss." > "Good. Did it accomplish anything?" > "I don't know. But one of them is down." > I saw it then--one of the Jenoine was down indeed, and wouldn't be > getting up again, and there was no mystery about what had taken it > out: the dragon was holding it down with two paws and tearing chunks > out of the thing with its teeth... > > So, what was overhead if not the dragon? There is no mention of any > other entity flying around. > > Also, as to the identity of the Dragon as Devera (and I am aware of > certain ex cathedra comments): Since "Mommy isn't allowed to know" > about Devera's existence, what explains Sethra's comment to Aliera > that she should know who the dragon was? > > > Ken Gorelick Huh. In my readings of _Issola_, I always thought of the dark cloud above as Adron. -- Matthew S. Klahn Software Architect, CodeTek Studios, Inc. http://www.codetek.com From zarkon at illrepute.org Fri Feb 20 12:40:45 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:40:45 -0500 (EST) Subject: (OT) Catch phrases that work (was:RE: A-Team Shard) In-Reply-To: <20040220200209.IWOI24575.lakemtao06.cox.net@smtp.central.cox.net> References: <20040220200209.IWOI24575.lakemtao06.cox.net@smtp.central.cox.net> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mike Melton wrote: @> Truly, one of the most brilliant (and quotable) movies of our time. @> The dialog was top-notch -- that movie would have been as funny as a @> radio show. An all-time favorite. (If you like "Clue", see "Noises @> Off". Trust me.) @> @> "Why would he threaten to kill you in public?" @> "I think she meant he threatened, in public, to kill her." "Communism was just a red herring." And, of course, the immortal exchange: "Duh-da-duh-duh-da-da! I.. am.. your singing telegram!" From mneme at io.com Fri Feb 20 13:27:38 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:27:38 -0600 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16438.31690.995588.175405@fnord.io.com> Mark A Mandel writes: >#On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: >#> examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can >#> you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was >#> published before 1990? >The Biography of Manuel, comprising almost all the fantasy works of >James Branch Cabell [1879-1958] >http://www.violetbooks.com/cabell.html *laugh*. Oh, yes. Though...are you sure they aren't the same book, written over and over again? (mostly joke, though IMEX, Cabell's work, while really good, has a similar enough quality that it can wear badly when taken in a large enough dose at once). I am, by the way, mystified by the newly minted idea that long-written or complex fantasy series began with Jordan [admitedly, he exceeds a lot of his predicessors in length, but even there, on the SF side of the fence, there's Hubbard to compare with]. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From mneme at io.com Fri Feb 20 13:22:59 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:22:59 -0600 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <20040220195037.68422.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040220195037.68422.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <16438.31411.345440.423246@fnord.io.com> Jerry Friedman writes: >--- Mark A Mandel wrote: >> LotR is not a series; it is a single book that was published in three >> physical volumes. (Here's the test: Can you pick up any book in the >> set and read it as a whole?) >... >Yabbut, Konrad was specifically asking for comparison with Robert >Jordan. I assure you, that's a single book that's being published >in n physical volumes. Yes, but he was being compared to Hobb, whose first series [under that name] of books does have some closure in each book (though the Hobb "Fitz" books (the Assassin books and the Fool books) are probably best taken as a single narrative in six parts; note that they do have a single point of view at all times, since they are written as autobiography; near as I can tell, this renders them utterly dissimilar to Jordan's work, and far closer to, say, Brust, if not either as compartmentalized nor as well written). -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Fri Feb 20 13:22:26 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:22:26 -0800 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: References: <5073B649.6D941036.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:15:18 -0500, you wrote: >KG wrote: >> I haven't read Clayton, and I'm having trouble finding >> examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can >> you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was >> published before 1990? > > >Donaldson >Covenant chronicles Two. Covenant and, briefly, Hile Troy. Donaldson even wrote that he was worried that changing the POV to Troy would harm his entire "real or not real?" question he was posing, the basis of Covenant's Unbelief. This applies only to the First Chronicles, of course. The Second added Linden Avery, and I'm not sure if there will be another POV in the upcoming Third Chronicles. From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Fri Feb 20 13:30:14 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:30:14 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <200402201630.AA1036124402@amish2000.com> ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: "Casey Rousseau" Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:15:18 -0500 >KG wrote: >> I haven't read Clayton, and I'm having trouble finding >> examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can >> you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was >> published before 1990? >And last, but certainly far from least, how about Zelazny's Amber! (not >trilogies, and it's been a while since I read 'em so I may be >misremembering the POV count but ...) ... Dude, there's Corwin, and then there's his really annoying son Merlin. No other POVs as far as I know. (And trust me, by the middle of the Merlin chronicles, I would've been dying for a POV from even Flora.) ... Wait. Does Julian May's Pliocene Exile count? AFAIK, there are ... aikenelizabethfeliceculluketdion - LOTS of POVs there, and it's epic-er than McCaffrey at her least-lame. ? MJ From lister at insaneninjahero.com Fri Feb 20 13:45:03 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:45:03 -0800 Subject: Robert Jordan In-Reply-To: <16438.31690.995588.175405@fnord.io.com> References: <16438.31690.995588.175405@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <40367FDF.3060803@insaneninjahero.com> Joshua Kronengold wrote: > Mark A Mandel writes: > >>#On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: >>#> examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can >>#> you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was >>#> published before 1990? >>The Biography of Manuel, comprising almost all the fantasy works of >>James Branch Cabell [1879-1958] >>http://www.violetbooks.com/cabell.html > > > *laugh*. > > Oh, yes. > > Though...are you sure they aren't the same book, written over and over > again? > > (mostly joke, though IMEX, Cabell's work, while really good, has a > similar enough quality that it can wear badly when taken in a large > enough dose at once). > > I am, by the way, mystified by the newly minted idea that long-written > or complex fantasy series began with Jordan [admitedly, he exceeds a > lot of his predicessors in length, but even there, on the SF side of > the fence, there's Hubbard to compare with]. > > You really shouldn't compare anything that anyone likes with Hubbard. *shudder* Derrill From warlord at dragon.com Fri Feb 20 13:47:12 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:47:12 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan In-Reply-To: <40367FDF.3060803@insaneninjahero.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert [mailto:lister at insaneninjahero.com] > Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 4:45 PM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Robert Jordan > > > Joshua Kronengold wrote: > > Mark A Mandel writes: > > > >>#On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > >>#> examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > >>#> you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > >>#> published before 1990? > >>The Biography of Manuel, comprising almost all the fantasy works of > >>James Branch Cabell [1879-1958] > >>http://www.violetbooks.com/cabell.html > > > > > > *laugh*. > > > > Oh, yes. > > > > Though...are you sure they aren't the same book, written over and over > > again? > > > > (mostly joke, though IMEX, Cabell's work, while really good, has a > > similar enough quality that it can wear badly when taken in a large > > enough dose at once). > > > > I am, by the way, mystified by the newly minted idea that long-written > > or complex fantasy series began with Jordan [admitedly, he exceeds a > > lot of his predicessors in length, but even there, on the SF side of > > the fence, there's Hubbard to compare with]. > > > > > > You really shouldn't compare anything that anyone likes with Hubbard. > *shudder* > Seconded! The man started a plague on this world. *also shudders* W "Now, don't bother to flame me, because by the time you read this post I will be a different person from the one who wrote it. You cannot step in the same river twice." --Sarah Barton From casey at the-bat.net Fri Feb 20 13:42:34 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:42:34 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I suggested: > >Donaldson > >Covenant chronicles To which lazarus replied: > Two. Covenant and, briefly, Hile Troy. Donaldson even wrote that he > was worried that changing the POV to Troy would harm his entire "real > or not real?" question he was posing, the basis of Covenant's > Unbelief. > > This applies only to the First Chronicles, of course. The Second > added Linden Avery, and I'm not sure if there will be another POV in > the upcoming Third Chronicles. I was counting both. IIRC, there are several POVs in the Second Chronicles. Then again, my brain is getting creaky and I haven't read all of them recently. Actually, the Illearth War is the one I'm most likely to pick up at any given time. Casey From Gaertk at aol.com Fri Feb 20 14:08:36 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 17:08:36 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <177D0338.468618C2.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/20/2004 4:22:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, Joshua Kronengold writes: >Jerry Friedman writes: >> Yabbut, Konrad was specifically asking for comparison with >> Robert Jordan. ?I assure you, that's a single book that's >> being published in n physical volumes. I'm going to officially retract the comments I made last night, since I've spent all morning remembering counter examples (like Donaldson's trilogies from the 70's, or Hugh Cook's _Wizard War_ that I'm currently reading). > Yes, but he was being compared to Hobb, whose first series > [under that name] of books does have some closure in each > book (though the Hobb "Fitz" books (the Assassin books and > the Fool books) are probably best taken as a single > narrative in six parts; note that they do have a single > point of view at all times, since they are written as > autobiography; near as I can tell, this renders them > utterly dissimilar to Jordan's work, and far closer to, > say, Brust, if not either as compartmentalized nor as well > written). Now that I've bothered to think about it, her Farseer trilogy is structured nearly identical to Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series, though her other two trilogies or more three-volume novels. --KG From mneme at io.com Fri Feb 20 14:00:11 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:00:11 -0600 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: References: <5073B649.6D941036.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <16438.33643.410047.322812@fnord.io.com> Casey Rousseau writes: >Peirs Anthony >Xanth (yeah, not very literary, but...) >Immortals (OK, maybe only 5 POV's but I think one or two books might >have had multiple POV) 7. 7 books, 7 POVs. >Donaldson >Covenant chronicles 2 POVs, I think. >Bradley >Darkover. A rambling series, not Doorstop volumes, but many POVs if >only because it's multigenerational. Part SF, part fantasy. Many, many, and several books had multiple POVs. >As for Doorstoppers, how about Eddings' Belgariad/Mallorean. A few >volumes post 1990. But note that it's one POV for each of the the two pentalogies. At least, I think it is; it's certainly single POV for Belgariad; Mallorean might have had more. >And last, but certainly far from least, how about Zelazny's Amber! (not >trilogies, and it's been a while since I read 'em so I may be >misremembering the POV count but ...) One POV per pentalogy, methinks. But what about Theive's World? Not only multiple POVs (many, many!) but multiple authors writing them! -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From dek at MIT.EDU Fri Feb 20 14:03:07 2004 From: dek at MIT.EDU (Derek) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 17:03:07 -0500 Subject: Hello, and apropos flashy gods Message-ID: <4036841B.2000903@mit.edu> Hello everyone, I've been on this list for a few days, observing the autochthones (as Jack Vance might put it), and I thought I'd throw some possibly unfounded speculation into the electronic winds. However, a brief intro seems to be in order for new players, and here's my SKZB, PJF story: I was first persuaded to read Mr. Brust by the late great Roger Zelazny's blurb on 'Jhereg", which read something along the lines of "Watch Steven Brust. He moves fast, he surprises you.". It's a rare blurb that applies equally well to martial artists (or, more probably, fencers) and writers, and I was intrigued enough to take a peek. This was ~4 years ago, and I haven't needed any other inducements to buy SKZB since then. If I were to choose, I'd rank "The Phoenix Guards" and "Five Hundred Years After" as my favourites. It's quite clear that he had great fun writing those, and I had great fun reading them. Was there ever an allusion to Paarfi's compensation model - was he paid by the word, a la Dumas? :-) On to the unfounded speculation...spoilers for Issola below: (This is a partial hijack of the "Flying dragon" thread, which could just possibly have devolved to "do Balrogs have wings?", so I don't feel too guilty :-) From Issola: " were throwing all sorts of things at it that didn't get through, and there was that God overhead, dominating everything, making flashes of light that made the daylight seem brighter than bright." I think this was the contrarian god "Ordwynac", first seen (I think) in "The Paths of the Dead". As I recall, it manifested as a flame. From what I've seen, there's a good deal of internal dissension among the gods, and they're not particularly prescient, despite (or perhaps because of?) the timeless nature of their world. The gods seem especially blind to the destinies of the Great Weapons, which makes sense given what little we know of their purpose. The GWs seem to be strange attractors of sorts, and the Serioli (their creators) seem to have a good understanding of their destinies; Dragaera seems rather deterministic in some ways. A rather science fictional notion about the origins of the gods: I think their ability to appear in >=2 places at once is due to a massive overdose of amorphia at the Beginning. It seems an inherently chaotic and reality bending sort of thing, and what better origin than the Great Sea of Chaos? Some poisons, in great enough doses, don't kill :-) I wonder if Aliera could be persuaded to test this theory... Oh, but there's also the divine blood thing; I wonder if amorphia and haemoglobin interact strangely. The Jenoine, with their natural immunities, may not be able to duplicate this ability. Okay, that's enough speculation for now! Derek From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 15:00:13 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:00:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040220230013.59521.qmail@web14427.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > > > --- Mark A Mandel wrote: > > > On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Steve Simmons wrote: > > ... > > > > > #And when action comes to the cusp, who's on the front lines? > Sethra, > > > #Vlad, the Necromancer, Devera. Verra's a ways back in the ranks. > > > > > > That can be fairly attributed to generalship (non-Dragon style) or > > > manipulation. Was Eisenhower ever in front-line battle (as a > General)? > > ... > > > > Anyway, I don't think it's true. As I recall, Verra jumped on a > > Jenoine like a tag fighting in a brothel, or something. > > Corrolary: Verra has to be humiliated to make Sethra more heroic... Hm... I couldn't figure out why Verra was so ineffectual against the Jenoine, especially in view of her boast earlier ("They still have reason to fear me", or something.) On the other hand, I wouldn't have minded a bit if she had killed one. Gandalf doesn't detract from Aragorn. -- Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 15:17:02 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:17:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040220231702.40604.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, skzb wrote: > > > > > > > > Spoiler for Gene Wolfe's Book of The New Sun: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > > > > > > > examples of fantasy trilogies outside of D&D tie-ins. Can > > > > you cite a fantasy series with at least 6 POVs that was > > > > published before 1990? > > > > > > The Book of the New Sun. > > > > Uh...that was one ponit of view, first person from Sevarian. > > I freely admit the above answer was rather snarky. > > But Severian doesn't exactly have one point of view, given that > he's a combination of the original Severian, Thecla, the autarch, > the previous autarch, a white hole ... Chapter XXXV of _The Citadel_ > gives some evidence he's not an alloy but a composite. He doesn't contain a white hole till a book I'm trying to forget, and I think he's mostly a composite, a literal Autarch, with a lapse or two. His name is Legion. > I wonder if Vlad will have a unified POV - at the end of _Issola_ > the Necromancer is already wondering who's running the show... I expect that _Tiassa_ will be somewhere between _The Book of the New Sun_ and _I Will Fear No Evil_. /When I see a Tiassalord in such circumstances, I cannot help but think of the tiassas of the forest, and of the heresiarch Felix, who was condemned by Willebrord the Insufficiently Prudent for suggesting that our desire to keep cats is a flowing forth of our dammed-up desire for women or for men, as the case may be. It is said that in one ancient language-- Chatelaine Teldra, do you wish to speak?/ /Thanks, twin hon. I always used to call Khaavren my Tom Cat./ Jerry Friedman trusts that's not a prohibited fanfic. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Feb 20 15:25:12 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:25:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: another Moorcock link? In-Reply-To: <20040220231702.40604.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040220231702.40604.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Am I dreaming, or did one of the Eternal Companions (maybe the one associated with Corwin) have a cat with wings? From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 15:22:34 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:22:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Question for THE Steven In-Reply-To: <20040220153409.92382.qmail@web21412.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040220232234.9001.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> --- Kenneth Stone wrote: > > --- Warlord wrote: > > Spoilers below, be ye warned. > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > ` > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Kenneth Stone [mailto:knots4kcs at yahoo.com] > > > Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 5:32 PM > > > To: dragaera > > > Subject: RE: Question for THE Steven > > > > > > > > > > Issola. > > > > > > > > W > > > > > > What specifically? > > > ------------- > > > > When it coils up like a snake in the Halls of > > Judgement. > > At that moment she either recognizes it as a great > > weapon, > > or, realizes *which* great weapon it it destined to > > be. > > I always assumed that it was about to kill her (or > "prevent her from manifesting herself" in that > place) and she was just afraid of it. > > > > > > > > > > Possible Kiera Spoiler!! > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > * > > > >ISTR that she's surprised when > > > >she first sees it, which must > > > >be in _Taltos_. I suppose she > > > >could just be surprised that > > > >Vlad has it *already*. Or she > > > >could have not put two and two > > > >together, or she could be > > > >acting. (It strikes as very > > > >likely, though not certain, > > > >that she's acting later in > > > >_Taltos_, during the discussion > > > >of who's going to leave the Paths.) This was a mistake on my part. The scene I was thinking of was the one in Chapter 5 of Issola that Warlord mentioned above. It may not the first time Verra has seen Spellbreaker, but it's the first time she reacts (in any obvious way). > > > I agree with the latter, > > > particularly because I think its > > > Verra's blood (the blood of a > > > god(dess?)) that Kiera gave to Vlad. I strongly suspect that that's right. > > > Remember that Sethra was once offered > > > God-hood? And she's a vampire? So I > > > think the blood was the offer of god- > > > hood (Which she "gave" to Kiera, and > > > Kiera gave to Vlad). I think Aliera, > > > Morrolan, and possibly Vlad now all > > > have a little god-hood in them. > > > > > > > Now that is a fascinating theory. I like it. > > > > W > > > > Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. > > --H. G. Wells > > > > Furthermore, I suspect that Sethra was > given a choice "God-hood or Morrolan". > I think it was "dangerous for her to > keep it" was because she is 1. a vampire > 2. tempted by god-hood. Also, I kinda > think of Sethra as "Verra the Younger". > Role-playing is god-hood for the masses. > (multiple places at once) > :-) I have my doubts. I meant to look up what Kiera tells Vlad about the blood at the end of _Taltos_, or was it the end of _Orca_? But I thought there was something about her being told to give it to Vlad, but not why. It's an interesting idea, though. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Feb 20 15:38:37 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:38:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <20040220231702.40604.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040220231702.40604.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > I expect that _Tiassa_ will be somewhere between _The Book of > the New Sun_ and _I Will Fear No Evil_. Hmm, somewhere between austere, baroque genius and titillating, popular schlock. Go out on a limb next time... Incidentally, one great virtue SKZB and Wolfe have in common is that they keep in mind what the reader is thinking about the available information. John M. Ford does this too - sometimes to the point of being too smart. From akomins at midway.uchicago.edu Fri Feb 20 15:33:26 2004 From: akomins at midway.uchicago.edu (Arin Komins) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 17:33:26 -0600 (CST) Subject: another Moorcock link? In-Reply-To: References: <20040220231702.40604.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: :Subject: another Moorcock link? : :Am I dreaming, or did one of the Eternal Companions (maybe the one :associated with Corwin) have a cat with wings? Yep! A little black and white cat, who shows up in several of the Moorcock multiverse books. Arin -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Arin Komins akomins at uchicago.edu Manager of Web Systems Architecture University of Chicago/ENSS/NSIT tel: (773)834-4087 1155 E. 60th St. #302B Chicago, IL 60637 fax: (773)702-0559 ------------------------------------------------------------------ From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Feb 20 15:41:46 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:41:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: another Moorcock link? In-Reply-To: References: <20040220231702.40604.qmail@web14426.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Arin Komins wrote: > On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > :Am I dreaming, or did one of the Eternal Companions (maybe the one > :associated with Corwin) have a cat with wings? > > Yep! A little black and white cat, who shows up in several of the > Moorcock multiverse books. Perhaps you can recall if it had other tiassa-like features, like unusual intuition. From bryann at bryann.net Fri Feb 20 18:17:28 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:17:28 -0600 Subject: GEO: Brokedown Palace Message-ID: First of all, thanks to everyone who helped me find a copy of "Brokedown Palace". I received it in the mail yesterday, and just finished it. Great book, wish I had read it before reading on here about who the daughter is... I nearly think I would have pretended to know who she was... It also provided me with the biggest geographic "ah ha!" I've yet had the pleasure to read from Brust: pg 38-39 "Miklos ... scooped up a handful of the water of Lake Fenarr ... It was more than two years ago that he had passed this way traveling west. Then, he had known it as the source of the River. Now he knew it for the basin that collected water from higher mountains, and sent it forth both east and west. In the west, the Lake's spawn was called the Eastern River. That combined with the map at the start shows me the course of the Eastern Mountains and the location of Redface/Pepperfields/etc. Now if only I can figure out to what scale the map was drawn. :) Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) Let's settle this the democratic way.... whoever has the most money decides - me From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 20 18:35:14 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 21:35:14 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <20040220195037.68422.qmail@web14424.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: #--- Mark A Mandel wrote: #Yabbut, Konrad was specifically asking for comparison with Robert #Jordan. I assure you, that's a single book that's being published #in n physical volumes. Never having picked any of them up except in a bookstore to put it quickly down again, I'll take your word for it. But that's not how it's presented. -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 20 19:06:24 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 22:06:24 -0500 Subject: another Moorcock link? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Arin Komins wrote: #On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: # #:Subject: another Moorcock link? #: #:Am I dreaming, or did one of the Eternal Companions (maybe the one #:associated with Corwin) have a cat with wings? # #Yep! A little black and white cat, who shows up in several of the #Moorcock multiverse books. I haven't read those. Does Moorcock have a Corwin? To me, Corwin (among fictional characters) is Corwin of Amber. -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 20 19:02:04 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 22:02:04 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: #Peirs Anthony Piers #Tolkein Tolkien "I before E except after C, Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." #And last, but certainly far from least, how about Zelazny's Amber! (not #trilogies, and it's been a while since I read 'em so I may be #misremembering the POV count but ...) Two: Corwin in the first pentalogy and Merlin in the second. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Fri Feb 20 19:03:35 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 22:03:35 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Warlord wrote: #"Now, don't bother to flame me, because by the time you read this post #I will be a different person from the one who wrote it. You cannot #step in the same river twice." --Sarah Barton Make that "fire" instead of "river". -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From akomins at midway.uchicago.edu Fri Feb 20 19:37:31 2004 From: akomins at midway.uchicago.edu (Arin Komins) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 21:37:31 -0600 (CST) Subject: another Moorcock link? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: :Subject: Re: another Moorcock link? : :On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Arin Komins wrote: : :#On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: :# :#:Subject: another Moorcock link? :#: :#:Am I dreaming, or did one of the Eternal Companions (maybe the one :#:associated with Corwin) have a cat with wings? :# :#Yep! A little black and white cat, who shows up in several of the :#Moorcock multiverse books. : :I haven't read those. Does Moorcock have a Corwin? To me, Corwin (among :fictional characters) is Corwin of Amber. No, he doesn't have a Corwin.... Arin -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Arin Komins akomins at uchicago.edu Manager of Web Systems Architecture University of Chicago/ENSS/NSIT tel: (773)834-4087 1155 E. 60th St. #302B Chicago, IL 60637 fax: (773)702-0559 ------------------------------------------------------------------ From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Fri Feb 20 19:46:45 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 22:46:45 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4036D4A5.3050105@earthlink.net> Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: > >#Peirs Anthony > Piers > >#Tolkein > Tolkien > >"I before E except after C, > Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." > > What a weird rule. *grin* Jose -- Jose Marquez \ Cthulhu 2004 jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ Why vote for http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ the lesser evil? From davids at kithrup.com Fri Feb 20 19:59:59 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 19:59:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: > >#Peirs Anthony > Piers > >#Tolkein > Tolkien > >"I before E except after C, > Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." Heinlein. Peirce. Sleight. Seize. Deice. Weir. Deil. Deity. Deis. Their. Heir. OK, "deice" is MONDO cheating, but nevertheless. Not that you're wrong about Tolkien, but that rule is not sufficiently absolute to be useful, especially when spelling people's names. [ now, watch Mario^H^H^H^H^H Dr. Whom cut me down to size. ] From dacileva at hotmail.com Fri Feb 20 20:40:01 2004 From: dacileva at hotmail.com (Nik Landauer) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 23:40:01 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: David Silberstein >On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > > > "I before E except after C, > > Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." > >Heinlein. Peirce. Sleight. Seize. Deice. Weir. Deil. >Deity. Deis. Their. Heir. Hm. That is weird. :D (Though as you said, deice is cheating. And I don't think I've ever seen the name Pierce written as Peirce.) -- Nik ( Shori / Dacileva ) "You know, once you Feng Shui the organs, it's kind of cozy." - Stewie _________________________________________________________________ Stay informed on Election 2004 and the race to Super Tuesday. http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx From frank at exit.com Fri Feb 20 20:59:37 2004 From: frank at exit.com (Frank Mayhar) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 20:59:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200402210459.i1L4xb0r073300@realtime.exit.com> David Silberstein wrote: > On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > >#Peirs Anthony > > Piers > > > >#Tolkein > > Tolkien > > > >"I before E except after C, > > Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." > Heinlein. Peirce. Sleight. Seize. Deice. Weir. Deil. > Deity. Deis. Their. Heir. Does anyone besides me remember the B.C. cartoon from the early 80's that was the definitive "i before e" joke? In which the above rhyme was presented, followed by the Cute Chick enumerating the exceptions. :-) -- Frank Mayhar frank at exit.com http://www.exit.com/ Exit Consulting http://www.gpsclock.com/ http://www.exit.com/blog/frank/ From genji_77 at hotmail.com Fri Feb 20 21:23:13 2004 From: genji_77 at hotmail.com (Genji) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 21:23:13 -0800 Subject: Really, really, really stupid question References: <20040218142425.33844.qmail@web21402.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kenneth Stone" To: "dragaera" Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 6:24 AM Subject: RE: Really, really, really stupid question snip > Good point. It seems that by Dragon (the room > full of Morganti weapons) that perceptions may > have switched. Easterners (or maybe just > Vlad, or maybe just ones over in the Empire) > have a superstitious dread of Morganti weapons > that don't seem to bother the Dragaerians so > much at that point. I get the feeling that > Morganti weapons arn't as commonplace during > _TPG_ as they are now. Perhaps the Jhereg > were still on the mend from the disaster and > from the last Dragon-Jhereg war. snip My guess on Vlad's hypersensitivity to morganti weapons is that it was related to his destiny to rebuild and wield a great weapon. I think part of the equation was that he needed to find a suitable morganti for the rebuild, and his sensitivity is linked to that process, even if he doesn't understand it. Of couse I could be way way way off base. hehehe Genji From dacileva at hotmail.com Fri Feb 20 21:32:10 2004 From: dacileva at hotmail.com (Nik Landauer) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 00:32:10 -0500 Subject: another Moorcock link? Message-ID: Arin Komins wrote: >Mark A Mandel wrote: > > Arin Komins wrote: > > > Philip Hart wrote: > > > > > > > > Am I dreaming, or did one of the Eternal Companions > > > > (maybe the one associated with Corwin) have a cat > > > > with wings? > > > > > > Yep! A little black and white cat, who shows up in several > > > of the Moorcock multiverse books. > > > > I haven't read those. Does Moorcock have a Corwin? To > > me, Corwin (among fictional characters) is Corwin of > > Amber. > >No, he doesn't have a Corwin.... He does have a Corum... Maybe that's what was meant? -- Nik ( Shori / Dacileva ) "You know, once you Feng Shui the organs, it's kind of cozy." - Stewie _________________________________________________________________ Stay informed on Election 2004 and the race to Super Tuesday. http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Fri Feb 20 23:20:40 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 23:20:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <200402210720.i1L7KeN08560@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> From: David Silberstein To: Mark A Mandel >On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > >>On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: >> >>#Peirs Anthony >> Piers >> >>#Tolkein >> Tolkien >> >>"I before E except after C, >> Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." > >Heinlein. Peirce. Sleight. Seize. Deice. Weir. Deil. >Deity. Deis. Their. Heir. And "weird", "sheik", "foreign", "height", "leisure". I think it was Patrick Nielsen Hayden (coincidentally SKZB's editor) who formulated the rule, "I before e except when it isn't." This rule has the advantage of having no exceptions. -- David Goldfarb |"An athiest is a person who wierdly refuses goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |to recieve the gift of beleif in a diety." goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dave Langford, on rec.arts.sf.fandom From feaelin at kemenel.org Sat Feb 21 06:50:24 2004 From: feaelin at kemenel.org (Iain E. Davis) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 08:50:24 -0600 Subject: Spelling (was: Robert Jordan) In-Reply-To: <200402210720.i1L7KeN08560@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> References: <200402210720.i1L7KeN08560@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040221084432.01b1a0c0@kemenel.org> At 01:20 AM 2/21/2004, you wrote: >From: David Silberstein >To: Mark A Mandel > >On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > > >>On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: > >> > >>#Peirs Anthony > >> Piers > >> > >>#Tolkein > >> Tolkien > >> > >>"I before E except after C, > >> Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." > > > >Heinlein. Peirce. Sleight. Seize. Deice. Weir. Deil. > >Deity. Deis. Their. Heir. > >And "weird", "sheik", "foreign", "height", "leisure". > >I think it was Patrick Nielsen Hayden (coincidentally SKZB's >editor) who formulated the rule, "I before e except when it isn't." >This rule has the advantage of having no exceptions. Actually....when I first saw Mark commenting on the "rule", I immediately thought about an article I read a while back that discussed how "rules" such as "I before E except after C, except for the exceptions" are simplifications of much deeper rules. Mark can probably explain it better than I can... I'll note that using names as guide in this matter will lead you astray, since many names are not _english_ and therefore are not following english spelling rules. There are probably several "borrow" words that confuse the issue (although I can't think of any right now) :) From feaelin at kemenel.org Sat Feb 21 07:48:08 2004 From: feaelin at kemenel.org (Iain E. Davis) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 09:48:08 -0600 Subject: Jordan, other authors, POV, etc. (was: Robert Jordan) Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040221085127.01b0e420@kemenel.org> Why is multiple POVs an important criteria? For the most part, I prefer NOT having multiple POVs, unless they are very well done, I primarily find switching viewpoints (especially in books that do it every chapter) annoying. I admit, that if you're trying to paint on a large canvas (Tolkien & Brin) and it is done well, it can give you a better picture of "the grand scheme of things". But I certainly wouldn't use it for a criterion for selecting books. I also find it strange when people say "If you like Tolkien, you'll like..." when the commonality they're basing it on is that they both Fantasy, and attempting the "World-Spanning Epic". But the writing is entirely different. Don't get me wrong, I _like_ world-spanning epic, but I don't think calling authors similar on that basis is a good idea. Which brings us to my views on Robert Jordan. It is pretty clear that Robert Jordan presents something that folks like, although I can't identify what it is. I personally have only tried the first book of the Wheel of Time series, which I did not finish (which is very rare...in fact, most books I tend to read in one sitting...regardless of quality. "It was so good I read it in one sitting" doesn't mean much to me. ;)). The biggest problem I had was that I passionately hated the characters. Every last one. Most of them struck me as whiny and gripe-y (if I can abuse the word gripe) and the only character that wasn't, I didn't like either...it boggled my mind how _stupid_ he was. Eventually, I gave up entirely and went and read something else. :) I'll try to comment quickly on some of the other authors, since this already too long. :) Tolkien: Always will be a favorite of mine. But I have to recognize that his style of writing isn't for everyone. MZB: Darkover is cool. I greatly enjoyed the "idea & science" of Darkover And I do enjoy the fact that her characters aren't perfect, often have tragic flaws. Sadly, I got tired of reading MZB's work because of the constant pushing of her (politics?) in her novels. I probably enjoyed them best when I was young enough to be oblivious to them. :) Piers Anthony: I have such mixed feelings about Anthony. He often comes up with very cool ideas (Apprentice Adept, Incarnations, Xanth), but he has a tendency to go too far over the top (Xanth, 2nd Apprentice Adept Trilogy, portions of Incarnations) which detracts from my continued enjoyment of the books. Anne McCaffrey: Early and Middle works are the best. I loved the Dragonriders series, although I've read them to death. I enjoyed the Pegasus books and the related series I'm blocking on the name of (although again, later ones aren't as good as earlier ones). Zelazny: Amber ruled. Haven't got into the other stuff as much. The last may be the same problem I have with Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land": I didn't grow up in the period/culture that makes the book especially relevant. It also may be I'll get better appreciation on a second or third pass. It'll have to wait until I complete my run through Silverberg's Lord Valentine and the Brin run I promised a friend, and I complete my "newly acquired" book pile. :) Donaldson: Um well, I did finish the entire Covenant double-trilogy. I don't think I have time or room to explain why I hate it. :). Hobb: Only read one book, "Assassin's Apprentice" I wasn't impressed enough to go get any more, although I may revisit it. :) Hubbard: Hee Hee Hee... Brin: Brin is a good example of where the author genuinely needs changing points of view, and I really enjoy the "Uplift Universe" of books....but I do find it frustrating that I get attached to a character, only to have the character snatched from me in the next book. ;) Have I committed sufficient acts of heresy now? :) Iain From mam at theworld.com Sat Feb 21 11:40:16 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 14:40:16 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: #On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: # #>On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Casey Rousseau wrote: #> #>#Peirs Anthony #> Piers #> #>#Tolkein #> Tolkien #> #>"I before E except after C, #> Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." # #Heinlein. Peirce. Sleight. Seize. Deice. Weir. Deil. #Deity. Deis. Their. Heir. # #OK, "deice" is MONDO cheating, but nevertheless. #Not that you're wrong about Tolkien, but that rule is not sufficiently #absolute to be useful, especially when spelling people's names. #[ now, watch Mario^H^H^H^H^H Dr. Whom cut me down to size. ] Not really... . You've got good points here. (But never invite Mario to match points with you!) Rules of thumb can't incorporate all the caveats that may be necessary. English has so bloody many lexical exceptions (where you have to know the word) that it can't be all done by rule. Nothing in English spelling is absolute. I just thought I had to say something for those two in one post; and the misspelling of "Tolkien"* is too common to be left alone, at least for a language fiend ("ie") who got hooked on LotR about 1963. * And the (I suspect) associated mispronunciation. The name rhymes with "seen", not "sign". Let's see... Peirce. A name, and Scottish. Names are bl@@dy unpredictable. If John Mxyzptlk says he pronounces his last name "Smith", you have to go along with it. Heinlein. A name, and from German. Their. Heir. Pronounced "ay", with the difference you'd expect before "r", and so obeying the rule. (Note that "they" would be spelled "thei" if we didn't have a strong prejudice against writing final "i" that has led us to write it "y" for centuries.) Sleight. Before "gh" it's always "ei", never "ie", as far as I can remember. Usually these fall into the "pronounced ay" rule, but "sleight" and "height" don't. Deice. Deity. Two syllables, a rare situation. If you can pronounce these you should know how to spell them. "Deity", though, is one of those "seen-but-not-heard" words, which probably accounts for the common "ie" mistake. Seize. Weir. Lexical exceptions that I can't fit into any pattern. Deil. Scottish (from "devil"). Deis. Where'd you get this one? The OED has it only as a spelling of "dais" used in the 13th to 16th centuries. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Sat Feb 21 11:45:58 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 14:45:58 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Nik Landauer wrote: #Hm. That is weird. :D # #(Though as you said, deice is cheating. And I don't think #I've ever seen the name Pierce written as Peirce.) Great American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/index.htm It's a name. Names go weird. Weird: Northern or Scottish. OED says: The word is common in OE., but wanting in ME. until c1300, and then occurs chiefly in northern texts, though employed also by Chaucer, Gower, and Langland. The normal later and modern form would have been wird, and the substitution of werd, werd [with long 'e'] (which is natural in south-eastern ME.) is difficult to account for in the northern dialects. In senses now current the word is either Scottish or archaic (chiefly under the influence of Scottish writers).] [OE., ME. = Old/Middle English -- DrW] -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Sat Feb 21 11:53:47 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 14:53:47 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <200402210720.i1L7KeN08560@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, David Goldfarb wrote: #And "weird", "sheik", "foreign", "height", "leisure". weird Just answered in another post. sheik >From Arabic; the OED gives the primary pronunciation as rhyming with "cake". Maybe Americans found it confusing with "shake". [Arabic shaikh properly 'old man', f. shakha [first 'a' long-] to grow or be old. Cf. OF. esceque, seic, F. cheik, scheik, Sp. jeque, Pg. xeque.] foreign Should've been "foran" or "forane", from Latin "foranus", but some overeducated jackass got it into his head that it was connected with "reign" < L. "regnum". Same for "sovereign" < It. "sovrano". height In a previous post. leisure It looks as if we took the word from French. I admit, most of the explanations I've given for exceptions are no help to the speller. English spelling is a mess. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sat Feb 21 12:22:40 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 12:22:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > English spelling is a mess. I used "thesal" as an adjectival form of "thesis" in grad school and decided it needed some context: Toles's Tongue Twisters Thesal Cecil Thistle Scissle Sizzle Sessile Sisal. Sisly Thistly Sicily Thessaly. Thither Zither Scissors. Thighs Size Sighs Scythes. Seize These C's Seethes. From davids at kithrup.com Sat Feb 21 12:55:51 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 12:55:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > >#On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: ># >#>"I before E except after C, >#> Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." ># >#Heinlein. Peirce. Sleight. Seize. Deice. Weir. Deil. >#Deity. Deis. Their. Heir. ># > > Their. > Heir. >Pronounced "ay", with the difference you'd expect before "r", and so >obeying the rule. (Note that "they" would be spelled "thei" if we >didn't have a strong prejudice against writing final "i" that has led >us to write it "y" for centuries.) Quibble: *Are* they pronounced "ay"? To my ear (here we go with pronunciation problems again), the sound is not the same as in "weigh". http://dictionary.reference.com/ indicates that they are different; "their" says "?" (a-carat) rather than "a-superscript-bar" (for "weigh"). The OED indicates different vowel sounds as well. > > Deis. >Where'd you get this one? The OED has it only as a spelling of "dais" >used in the 13th to 16th centuries. > Yup. I was using dictionary.reference.com for the above, feeling too lazy to log into my OED access, and misspellings brought up some various words with "ei" in, including the above obsolete one. That's probably a cheat as well. From stikjok at hotmail.com Sat Feb 21 12:42:20 2004 From: stikjok at hotmail.com (Dave Cooper) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 20:42:20 +0000 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) Message-ID: After reading Issola, the regret I have is that the morganti weapon that was transformed was a long dagger, rather than the fencing weapon that Vlad is used to. He is, of course versed in the use of hand to hand dagger fighting, but his preffered method is foil and dagger. Now Iceflame is a dagger, but both Blackwand and Pathfinder are full sized swords, and thus more effective in battle, especially since Great weps AND morganti weps can kill with the smallest scratch. The dagger used in the left hand is for defence and coup de grace strokes, not for light strokes. >From the Issola reading, I get the impression that Lady Teldra is just a bit shorter and much thinner than a machete, more like a thin viking sax. I just think that she would have prefered a larger home. )) Dave PS> I was just sick of the Robert Jordan threads... wanted to start something different. _________________________________________________________________ Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee when you click here. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 From usagigoya at hotmail.com Sat Feb 21 13:44:04 2004 From: usagigoya at hotmail.com (Steve Hubbell) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 21:44:04 +0000 Subject: zelazny Message-ID: >"M J" wrote on Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:30:14 -0500 > >... Dude, there's Corwin, and then there's his really annoying son Merlin. >No other POVs as far as I know. (And trust me, by the middle of the Merlin >chronicles, I would've been dying for a POV from even Flora.) > Sorry, had to reply to this one, In the last five Amber short stories Zelazny wrote just before he died, the POV was from several people, Corwin, Merlin, Merlin's gold chain (can't remember it's name), and Luke (Brand's son). _________________________________________________________________ Take off on a romantic weekend or a family adventure to these great U.S. locations. http://special.msn.com/local/hotdestinations.armx From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Sat Feb 21 13:43:35 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:43:35 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <200402211643.AA217252060@amish2000.com> ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: "Steve Hubbell" Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 21:18:48 +0000 >> >>"M J"? wrote on?Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:30:14 -0500 >> >>... Dude, there's Corwin, and then there's his really annoying son Merlin.??No other POVs as far as I know.??(And trust me, by the middle of the Merlin chronicles, I would've been dying for a POV from even Flora.) >Sorry, had to reply to this one, >In the last five Amber short stories Zelazny wrote just before he died, the POV was from several people, Corwin, Merlin, Merlin's gold chain (can't remember it's name), and Luke (Brand's son). The gold chain was Frakir. She made me go OO. Do they really count, though? It's still Merlin telling the story; they're just telling a story to _him_. ? MJ From Gaertk at aol.com Sat Feb 21 13:56:27 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:56:27 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <581346C5.42A3FD02.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/21/2004 2:40:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, Mark A Mandel writes: >On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > >> ? ?Deity. > Two syllables, a rare situation. If you can pronounce these > you should know how to spell them. "Deity", though, is one > of those "seen-but-not-heard" words, which probably > accounts for the common "ie" mistake. ObBrust: During a Most Powerful Sword thread on rasfw, I once accidently made reference to Godslayer's obese cousin :) --KG From Gaertk at aol.com Sat Feb 21 14:10:18 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 17:10:18 -0500 Subject: Jordan, other authors, POV, etc. (was: Robert Jordan) Message-ID: <299344AF.0484E26D.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/21/2004 10:48:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Iain E. Davis" writes: >?Why is multiple POVs an important criteria? I brought it up because I was trying to claim Robert Jordan as a Significant Author. >?For the most part, I prefer NOT having multiple POVs, > unless they are very well done, I prefer not reading at all if the story isn't well done :) > I primarily find switching viewpoints (especially in books > that do it every chapter) annoying. ?I admit, that if > you're trying to paint on a large canvas (Tolkien & Brin) > and it is done well, it can give you a better picture of >?"the grand scheme of things". ?But I certainly wouldn't use > it for a criterion for selecting books. Some people do like getting inside the heads of many characters. Authors use it as an easy way to show how a character appears to other characters. And if you're writing something truly epic with only one POV, you have to choose between the whole universe revolving around that person, or the reader missing out on a lot of stuff. >?I also find it strange when people say "If you like > Tolkien, you'll like..." when the commonality they're > basing it on is that they both Fantasy, and attempting the > "World-Spanning Epic". ?But the writing is entirely > different. ?Don't get me wrong, I _like_ world-spanning > epic, but I don't think calling authors similar on that > basis is a good idea. ?Which brings us to my views on > Robert Jordan. Tolkien is a special case since everyone has heard of him, so publishers will do all they can to associate their books with him. Also, some people are explicitly looking for world-spanning epic stories. --KG From howard at brazee.net Sat Feb 21 15:49:22 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:49:22 -0700 Subject: Spam filters In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3f8d5$54f10530$b17ba8c0@Dad133> MailWasher Pro keeps filtering out messages that are not sent to me - e.g. to this listserver. Anybody know how to tell it not to do so? What's the best way to read and reply to these messages? From howard at brazee.net Sat Feb 21 15:54:20 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:54:20 -0700 Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000201c3f8d6$06aa74f0$b17ba8c0@Dad133> -----Original Message----- From: David Silberstein [mailto:davids at kithrup.com] Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 1:56 PM To: Dragaera List Subject: RE: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > >#On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: ># >#>"I before E except after C, >#> Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." ># >#Heinlein. Peirce. Sleight. Seize. Deice. Weir. Deil. >#Deity. Deis. Their. Heir. ># > > Their. > Heir. A weird foreign sheik bought a heifer right after reveille. From howard at brazee.net Sat Feb 21 15:51:25 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:51:25 -0700 Subject: Jordan, other authors, POV, etc. (was: Robert Jordan) In-Reply-To: <299344AF.0484E26D.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <000101c3f8d5$9e3baf60$b17ba8c0@Dad133> I brought it up because I was trying to claim Robert Jordan as a Significant Author. He's got a story and he tells it over and over again, more slowly than before. The Wheel of Time says nothing you do matters, next time the bad guys will be worse, and someone will have to beat them again. He may be significant by some criteria of yours - but he's not at all interesting to me. From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 21 16:35:20 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:35:20 -0800 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well. As I recall it was an exceptionally long dagger. A long dagger for a Dragaeraean is a VERY long dagger for an easterner. So, although not a foil or eppe (or whatever Vlad uses), it's certainly pretty long, and could probably be used pretty well. Iceflame is a dagger, and Sethra seems to have no trouble at all. As I recall in FHYA, Aliera challenges Sethra to a duel (one of the many times) and says that even though Sethra only has a dagger, she is not disadvantaged if she were to fight Aliera when Aliera has a sword. -Jeff On Feb 21, 2004, at 12:42 PM, Dave Cooper wrote: > After reading Issola, the regret I have is that the morganti weapon > that was transformed was a long dagger, rather than the fencing weapon > that Vlad is used to. He is, of course versed in the use of hand to > hand dagger fighting, but his preffered method is foil and dagger. > Now Iceflame is a dagger, but both Blackwand and Pathfinder are full > sized swords, and thus more effective in battle, especially since > Great weps AND morganti weps can kill with the smallest scratch. The > dagger used in the left hand is for defence and coup de grace strokes, > not for light strokes. > > From the Issola reading, I get the impression that Lady Teldra is just > a bit shorter and much thinner than a machete, more like a thin viking > sax. I just think that she would have prefered a larger home. )) > > Dave > > PS> I was just sick of the Robert Jordan threads... wanted to start > something different. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee when you click here. > http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 > From yaga at berkano.pair.com Sat Feb 21 21:56:22 2004 From: yaga at berkano.pair.com (yaga at berkano.pair.com) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 00:56:22 -0500 (EST) Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040222055622.77181.qmail@berkano.pair.com> It hadn't occurred to me at the time, but given that Spellbreaker was known to change length from time to time, both in terms of overall and link-size, perhaps a characteristic of Godslayer will be its blade adjusting similarly. Granted, Spellbreaker is but wrapped around the handle as part of Godslayer, but given that Lady Teldra's nature is to ensure that her guests have everything they need and she is now both a part of the blade and the chain, I don't think it would be too improbably for her to conform Godslayer to suit Vlad's needs. Which leads me to wonder if that might not be an excellent narrative device for SKZB; Godslayer changing size to suit Vlad's needs on some occasion (more rapier-like in a duel, wide and short to chop some would-be assassin's head off that he can send it back to the contractor). It may also serve as a way for Vlad to 'communicate' with Teldra -- he ask what he should do in some situation, Godslayer becomes too big to be removed from its sheath, and so Vlad cannot draw the weapon to, say, exact some petty revenge, and so Vlad must come up with some other plan. An interesting collary to this of course would be whether Lady Teldra would ever let Vlad turn Godslayer on Moorrlan... - Peter / Yaga > Well. As I recall it was an exceptionally long dagger. A long dagger > for a Dragaeraean is a VERY long dagger for an easterner. So, although > not a foil or eppe (or whatever Vlad uses), it's certainly pretty long, > and could probably be used pretty well. Iceflame is a dagger, and > Sethra seems to have no trouble at all. As I recall in FHYA, Aliera > challenges Sethra to a duel (one of the many times) and says that even > though Sethra only has a dagger, she is not disadvantaged if she were > to fight Aliera when Aliera has a sword. > > -Jeff > > On Feb 21, 2004, at 12:42 PM, Dave Cooper wrote: > > > After reading Issola, the regret I have is that the morganti weapon > > that was transformed was a long dagger, rather than the fencing weapon > > that Vlad is used to. He is, of course versed in the use of hand to > > hand dagger fighting, but his preffered method is foil and dagger. > > Now Iceflame is a dagger, but both Blackwand and Pathfinder are full > > sized swords, and thus more effective in battle, especially since > > Great weps AND morganti weps can kill with the smallest scratch. The > > dagger used in the left hand is for defence and coup de grace strokes, > > not for light strokes. > > > > From the Issola reading, I get the impression that Lady Teldra is just > > a bit shorter and much thinner than a machete, more like a thin viking > > sax. I just think that she would have prefered a larger home. )) > > > > Dave > > > > PS> I was just sick of the Robert Jordan threads... wanted to start > > something different. > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee when you click here. > > http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 > > > > From matthew at infodancer.org Sun Feb 22 03:45:10 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 05:45:10 -0600 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040222114510.GB21278@infodancer.org> On Sat, Feb 21, 2004 at 08:42:20PM +0000, Dave Cooper wrote: > After reading Issola, the regret I have is that the morganti weapon that > was transformed was a long dagger, rather than the fencing weapon that Vlad > is used to. He is, of course versed in the use of hand to hand dagger > fighting, but his preffered method is foil and dagger. Now Iceflame is a > dagger, but both Blackwand and Pathfinder are full sized swords, and thus > more effective in battle, especially since Great weps AND morganti weps can > kill with the smallest scratch. The dagger used in the left hand is for > defence and coup de grace strokes, not for light strokes. > > From the Issola reading, I get the impression that Lady Teldra is just a > bit shorter and much thinner than a machete, more like a thin viking sax. > I just think that she would have prefered a larger home. )) I got the same basic impression. That particular tidbit has always struck a discordant note for me; first, it's very little like what you would expect Vlad to use, and second, it's nothing like you would expect Teldra herself to prefer. I could *easily* perceive Teldra's personality in a slim, decorative and deceptively-delicate rapier or similar fencing weapon; it would fit her personality to a T and match Vlad's own choice of arms as well. But clearly that's not the case. However, I think the presence of Lady Teldra in the form of a long dagger makes it somewhat more difficult for Vlad to use her casually. And I think that's a very good thing for Vlad's moral development. He has a Great Weapon now; a certain amount of restraint is necessary. Should he resign himself to eating the soul of anyone he crossed blades with, at least until Lady Teldra wakes up? I doubt he would prefer to do that, and carrying two rapiers would be silly. Lady Teldra as main gauche is much more practical. She won't be having dinner with bandits or random sneering Jhereg as the main course. Perhaps just as important, Vlad's not exactly going to be swordfighting with her. It's sort of like bringing a tank to a knife fight. He's an *assassin* rather than a front-line type. Lady Teldra will probably be attacking in stealth more often than not, and seems well suited for that. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From howard at brazee.net Sun Feb 22 06:59:46 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 07:59:46 -0700 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <20040222114510.GB21278@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <000301c3f954$834a2770$b17ba8c0@Dad133> I doubt he would prefer to do that, and carrying two rapiers would be silly. Lady Teldra as main gauche is much more practical. She won't be having dinner with bandits or random sneering Jhereg as the main course. Perhaps just as important, Vlad's not exactly going to be swordfighting with her. It's sort of like bringing a tank to a knife fight. He's an *assassin* rather than a front-line type. Lady Teldra will probably be attacking in stealth more often than not, and seems well suited for that. On the other hand, there will be times when he wants to show a little blade - and the only people who will stick around once they feel the power of that blade will be those knowledgeable enough to fear her. From pulmon at comcast.net Sun Feb 22 07:25:57 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 10:25:57 -0500 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <000301c3f954$834a2770$b17ba8c0@Dad133> References: <000301c3f954$834a2770$b17ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: <6948EF77-654B-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 22, 2004, at 9:59 AM, Howard Brazee wrote: > I doubt he would prefer to do that, and carrying two rapiers > would be silly. Lady Teldra as main gauche is much more > practical. She won't be having dinner with bandits or random > sneering Jhereg as the main course. > > Perhaps just as important, Vlad's not exactly going to be > swordfighting with her. It's sort of like bringing a tank to a > knife fight. He's an *assassin* rather than a front-line type. > Lady Teldra will probably be attacking in stealth more often than > not, and seems well suited for that. > > > On the other hand, there will be times when he wants to show a little > blade - and the only people who will stick around once they feel the > power > of that blade will be those knowledgeable enough to fear her. > > > > So how many bearers of great weapons fight with something else? None! Lady T is only part of GS--there is also a Morganti blade and spellbreaker. Vlad also admired the feel of the dagger, and I suspect that it will be his only weapon for close fighting. Of course, he still can throw things, and Loiosh ain't retiring! From howard at brazee.net Sun Feb 22 08:04:37 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 09:04:37 -0700 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <6948EF77-654B-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <000a01c3f95d$92ec2490$b17ba8c0@Dad133> So how many bearers of great weapons fight with something else? None! Lady T is only part of GS--there is also a Morganti blade and spellbreaker. Vlad also admired the feel of the dagger, and I suspect that it will be his only weapon for close fighting. Of course, he still can throw things, and Loiosh ain't retiring! The effect of Morganti blades isn't always what is wanted. He will have other blades, and use them. From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 08:35:32 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 10:35:32 -0600 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <20040222114510.GB21278@infodancer.org> Message-ID: > > After reading Issola, the regret I have is that the morganti weapon that > > was transformed was a long dagger, rather than the fencing weapon that Vlad > > is used to. He is, of course versed in the use of hand to hand dagger > > fighting, but his preffered method is foil and dagger. Now Iceflame is a > > dagger, but both Blackwand and Pathfinder are full sized swords, and thus > > more effective in battle, especially since Great weps AND morganti weps can > > kill with the smallest scratch. The dagger used in the left hand is for > > defence and coup de grace strokes, not for light strokes. > > > > From the Issola reading, I get the impression that Lady Teldra is just a > > bit shorter and much thinner than a machete, more like a thin viking sax. > > I just think that she would have prefered a larger home. )) > > I got the same basic impression. That particular tidbit has > always struck a discordant note for me; first, it's very little > like what you would expect Vlad to use, and second, it's nothing > like you would expect Teldra herself to prefer. I could *easily* > perceive Teldra's personality in a slim, decorative and > deceptively-delicate rapier or similar fencing weapon; it would > fit her personality to a T and match Vlad's own choice of arms > as well. Issola, hc pg 88 - "It was long for a knife and short for a sword. Impractical in every way, and was probably not even balanced all that well, most likely being a bit blade-heavy. This, of course, was useful for chopping away in battle" Issola, hc pg 98 - "It was a narrow blade, very light and useful-feeling in my hand, about eighteen inches long, and not nearly as blade-heavy as I'd suspected it would be." Issola, hc pg 245 - "It fit my hand like an additional finger, like it should have been there all along, or maybe it had been there all along and I'd never been aware of it." Per fencing.net, the epee is the closest of the three modern fencing weapons (epee, foil, sabre) to what was actually used in medieval times. So, an images.google.com search for "epee and dagger" returned the following: http://www.imperialweapons.com/swords/iberia/1032-GT.JPG If you read the specs on the image, the sword has a 37" inch blade, and the dagger a 17.5" blade, which lines up nicely with Godslayer being used as the off weapon. Can you imagine how DISTRACTING it would be to fight someone whose off-weapon was a Great Weapon? It's not like Blackwand, where you just have to avoid being hit by the one sword, all your attention would be focused on Godslayer, which isn't the "primary" weapon! > However, I think the presence of Lady Teldra in the form of a > long dagger makes it somewhat more difficult for Vlad to use her > casually. And I think that's a very good thing for Vlad's moral > development. He has a Great Weapon now; a certain amount of > restraint is necessary. Should he resign himself to eating the > soul of anyone he crossed blades with, at least until Lady Teldra > wakes up? I believe that Morrolan has demonstrated that the owners of the Great Weapons _decide_ when their weapons eat souls. Maybe that is just a trait of Blackwand, but I got the feeling all Great Weapons worked that way. Plus, as I theorized above, I think in a straight up fight (not an assassination), most of Vlad's opponents would fall to the sword, not the dagger (and then he could pick and choose whether to "finish them off" with Godslayer). Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 22 08:28:23 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 08:28:23 -0800 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <000a01c3f95d$92ec2490$b17ba8c0@Dad133> References: <000a01c3f95d$92ec2490$b17ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: <221B308E-6554-11D8-90B4-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> As I recall Morrolan once mentioned in PoTD, his great weapon will "do what I tell it to do" meaning it doesn't necessarily have to destroy the person's soul if the bearer doesn't want it to. -Jeff On Feb 22, 2004, at 8:04 AM, Howard Brazee wrote: > > > So how many bearers of great weapons fight with something else? None! > Lady T is only part of GS--there is also a Morganti blade and > spellbreaker. Vlad also admired the feel of the dagger, and I suspect > that it will be his only weapon for close fighting. Of course, he still > can throw things, and Loiosh ain't retiring! > The effect of Morganti blades isn't always what is wanted. He will > have > other blades, and use them. > From usagigoya at hotmail.com Sun Feb 22 08:44:54 2004 From: usagigoya at hotmail.com (Steve Hubbell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 16:44:54 +0000 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: >From: "M J" >Reply-To: >To: >Subject: RE: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) >Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:43:35 -0500 > > >---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- >From: "Steve Hubbell" >Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 21:18:48 +0000 > > >> > >>"M J"? wrote on?Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:30:14 -0500 > >> > >>... Dude, there's Corwin, and then there's his really annoying son >Merlin.??No other POVs as far as I know.??(And trust me, by the middle of >the Merlin chronicles, I would've been dying for a POV from even Flora.) > > >Sorry, had to reply to this one, > >In the last five Amber short stories Zelazny wrote just before he died, >the POV was from several people, Corwin, Merlin, Merlin's gold chain (can't >remember it's name), and Luke (Brand's son). > >The gold chain was Frakir. She made me go OO. > >Do they really count, though? It's still Merlin telling the story; they're >just telling a story to _him_. > I don't recall anything that suggested that Merlin was supposed to being telling those last five stories (not counting the one story told from his POV). Blue Horse, Dancing Mountain and Hall of Mirrors were both from Corwin's POV. The Salesman's Tale was from Luke's POV. Coming to a Cord was from Frakir's POV. Merlin only appears in The Shroudling and the Guisel story and is barely mentioned in any of the others. I really thought there was something strange about how similar Frakir and Spellbreaker seemed to be. I would be interested in see SKZB do a Spellbreaker story along the lines of Coming to a Cord. >From: "M J" >Reply-To: >To: >Subject: RE: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) >Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 16:43:35 -0500 > > >---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- >From: "Steve Hubbell" >Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 21:18:48 +0000 > > >> > >>"M J"? wrote on?Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:30:14 -0500 > >> > >>... Dude, there's Corwin, and then there's his really annoying son >Merlin.??No other POVs as far as I know.??(And trust me, by the middle of >the Merlin chronicles, I would've been dying for a POV from even Flora.) > > >Sorry, had to reply to this one, > >In the last five Amber short stories Zelazny wrote just before he died, >the POV was from several people, Corwin, Merlin, Merlin's gold chain (can't >remember it's name), and Luke (Brand's son). > >The gold chain was Frakir. She made me go OO. > >Do they really count, though? It's still Merlin telling the story; they're >just telling a story to _him_. > I don't recall anything that suggested that Merlin was supposed to being telling those last five stories (not counting the one story told from his POV). Blue Horse, Dancing Mountain and Hall of Mirrors were both from Corwin's POV. The Salesman's Tale was from Luke's POV. Coming to a Cord was from Frakir's POV. Merlin only appears in The Shroudling and the Guisel story and is barely mentioned in any of the others. I really thought there was something strange about how similar Frakir and Spellbreaker seemed to be. I would be interested in see SKZB do a Spellbreaker story along the lines of Coming to a Cord. _________________________________________________________________ Dream of owning a home? Find out how in the First-time Home Buying Guide. http://special.msn.com/home/firsthome.armx From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Sun Feb 22 09:43:30 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 09:43:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: GEO: Brokedown Palace In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040222174330.14235.qmail@web21406.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Newell wrote: > First of all, thanks to everyone who helped me find > a copy of "BrBrokedown> Palace". I received it in the mail yesterday, and > just finished it. > > Great book, wish I had read it before reading on > here about who the daughter > is... I nearly think I would have pretended to know > who she was... > > It also provided me with the biggest geographic "ah > ha!" I've yet had the > pleasure to read from BrBrust > > pg 38-39 "MiMiklos.. scooped up a handful of the > water of Lake FeFenarr.. It > was more than two years ago that he had passed this > way traveling west. > Then, he had known it as the source of the River. > Now he knew it for the > basin that collected water from higher mountains, > and sent it forth both > east and west. In the west, the Lake's spawn was > called the Eastern River. > > That combined with the map at the start shows me the > course of the Eastern > Mountains and the location of > ReRedfaceePepperfieldstc. Now if only I can > figure out to what scale the map was drawn. :) > > Bryan Newell (hthttp/brbryannet) > Let's settle this the democratic way.... whoever has > the most money decides > - me > > FYI I am trying for a street-map of Adrilankha and it's a bowl of spaghetti. I've got most of the streets right around Vlad's old office, but Mr. Brust has perpendicular strees both having North and South designations and other issues. I know they're curvatious, but goodness. I am collecting tidbits about empire geography as I go, and I will pass those along soon. Also, may I borrow someone's Brokedown Palace? I will return it wrapped in velvet and bubble wrap and ship with a tracking number. Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From ruhlenr at tigger.uic.edu Sun Feb 22 13:02:33 2004 From: ruhlenr at tigger.uic.edu (Rachel L. Ruhlen) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 15:02:33 -0600 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <221B308E-6554-11D8-90B4-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> References: <000a01c3f95d$92ec2490$b17ba8c0@Dad133> <221B308E-6554-11D8-90B4-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.0.20040222145916.01b5c5e0@tigger.uic.edu> At 10:28 AM 2/22/2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: >As I recall Morrolan once mentioned in PoTD, his great weapon will "do >what I tell it to do" meaning it doesn't necessarily have to destroy the >person's soul if the bearer doesn't want it to. So in the scene in _Dragon_ where he allows Blackwand to eat the souls of thousands of Easterners, at least according to Vlad's account, and his evidence is the quality of their death screams, in that scene, Morrolan is being a complete bastard. I don't have a problem believing that. Rachel From davids at kithrup.com Sun Feb 22 13:23:46 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 13:23:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.0.20040222145916.01b5c5e0@tigger.uic.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Rachel L. Ruhlen wrote: >At 10:28 AM 2/22/2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: >>As I recall Morrolan once mentioned in PoTD, his great weapon will >>"do what I tell it to do" meaning it doesn't necessarily have to >>destroy the person's soul if the bearer doesn't want it to. >So in the scene in _Dragon_ where he allows Blackwand to eat the >souls of thousands of Easterners, at least according to Vlad's >account, and his evidence is the quality of their death screams, I don't know that we can conclude that, especially given that Vlad can't know for certain unless Morrolan tells him. I mean, how would somebody know whether the Big Scary Sword that Emanates a Field of Terror is going to eat his soul or not? There would be a lot of terrified screaming even if Morrolan was just waving the sword around unsheathed (as we see in /Paths of the Dead/) without hitting anyone. > in that scene, Morrolan is being a complete bastard. I don't have a >problem believing that. On the other hand, he might be that at that. Who can say? From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 14:51:51 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 16:51:51 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera Message-ID: I have begun work on my new website devoted to mapping the world of Dragaera. I will be posting a number of documents and maps on this page, and as I write each one, I will publish it on the mailing list. This is the first (which lets you know how far along I am... no maps online yet, but I'm working on them). As you can see from reading the document below, I'm taking the position that Steven Brust's Dragaera novels are "real". If this is confusing to anyone, let me know. You can access this website by going to http://bryann.net and clicking on the Steven Brust object on the shelf at the top (btw, the stylized Jhereg on this object is one of my musings for the Cycle, another project I am working on). If you have problems with the javascript/dhtml menu, try the direct link: http://bryann.net/cgi-bin/main?content=brust/main.web, but be aware it may change in the future. My website has been developed using a web application I wrote at work. We have almost fifty customers using products based on this web application, and every single one of them uses Internet Explorer 6 on all of their machines. Accordingly, 99% of my work has gone into making our web application work for this browser ONLY. On my own time, I have also worked a little bit to make it work with Mozilla. There are problems with the menus and CSS, but otherwise Mozilla works fairly well. My brother has a friend who uses Safari 1.2 for the Mac, and he says that browser is very compatible with my site, although I have not verified this myself. I understand from previous postings to this mailing list that a number of you will be using other browsers. If you have any problems viewing my site, please let me know what operating system and browser you're using (including versions), and I'll see what I can do. I do NOT have access to a Macintosh here, although we have an older model at work that does a great job of collecting dust. My internet connection is an ADSL. While I get around 160K/second download speeds, my upload speed is only 11K/second. Anyone visiting my site from the outside will be limited by this upload speed, so please be patient. You probably won't even notice unless I publish a particularly large map here. I am open to discussion on my Steven Brust website in general, and this document in particular. Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) His name was Friend To Wolf, and the four-barreled minigun slung across his shoulders was for everyone else. --begin document-- I. An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera My goal here is to create a map of Dragaera, a world revealed to us by Steven Brust. My attempt here is predicated on the following assumptions: 1. It is possible to make such a map. 2. The text is correct. That is, none of the narrators are blatantly wrong, and there are no major mistakes on the part of Steven Brust. In other words, I will try, as much as possible, to take the text of the novels at face value, and use the most obvious conclusions I can come up with. Questioning the text will only occur as a last resort. While I may not be capable of producing an exact map of Dragaera, I hope to produce a map that, at the very least, does not violate the text. I am more interested in the overall geography of Dragaera than the specifics of a given locale, so I will be using a scale of 1 pixel = 1 mile on all maps on this site, unless specifically noted otherwise. II. Sources 1. The Novels: The first thing I should establish is the framework within which the novels are written. Steven Brust receives these novels from outside sources, translates them into English, and publishes them under his own name. The novels and their narrators are: The Phoenix Guards Five Hundred Years After Paths of the Dead The Lord of Castle Black - As narrated by Paarfi of Roundwood, who considers himself a serious historian, but his contemporary detractors, of which there are many, accuse him of writing populist trash--more fiction than fact. Paarfi has strenuously denied this charge, although he has admitted to deducing some facts that were not known to him, such as what was eaten at a given meal, or the exact conversation between two characters. Jhereg Yendi Teckla Taltos Phoenix Dragon Issola - As narrated by Vladimir Taltos, an Easterner in the world of Dragaera. He is as intelligent and observant as you would expect from a master assassin. Orca - As narrated by Kiera the Thief, a Dragaeran of the House of Jhereg. She is an accomplished thief--perhaps the greatest thief in her world. She is extremely observant as well. She also reveals a secret in the one novel she narrated that leads me to believe she is a very trustworthy reporter. I do not know if she has directly narrated her tale to Steven Brust, or if she narrated it to Vlad, and he passed it along. Brokedown Palace Athyra - whose narrator is not known to me 2. The Author Any comments the author himself chooses to share on the subject, will, of course, be given the utmost consideration. However, within the framework he himself has dictated, anything he has to say on the subject should be accepted with a grain of salt. He is, after all, acting as the translator of these novels, as opposed to their original author. [*** Is this too much? -- Bryan ***] 3. Worthy Debate I will give equal consideration to all discussions on this subject, with friends, family, and on the Dragaeran Mailing List when refining my maps. It is certainly not my intent to be the only person working on this project. III. Disclaimer My work here is currently unauthorized. If any current or future text or comments by Steven Brust is in disagreement with my conclusions and maps, consider Steven Brust correct. Of course, if his text or comments disagree with his own text or comments, you'll have to take that up with him. From pulmon at comcast.net Sun Feb 22 15:33:38 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 18:33:38 -0500 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8A6AD2FB-658F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 22, 2004, at 5:51 PM, Bryan Newell wrote: > > You can access this website by going to http://bryann.net and clicking > on > the Steven Brust object on the shelf at the top (btw, the stylized > Jhereg on > this object is one of my musings for the Cycle, another project I am > working > on). > > If you have problems with the javascript/dhtml menu, try the direct > link: > http://bryann.net/cgi-bin/main?content=brust/main.web, but be aware it > may > change in the future. > > My website has been developed using a web application I wrote at work. > We > have almost fifty customers using products based on this web > application, > and every single one of them uses Internet Explorer 6 on all of their > machines. Accordingly, 99% of my work has gone into making our web > application work for this browser ONLY. > > On my own time, I have also worked a little bit to make it work with > Mozilla. There are problems with the menus and CSS, but otherwise > Mozilla > works fairly well. My brother has a friend who uses Safari 1.2 for > the Mac, > and he says that browser is very compatible with my site, although I > have > not verified this myself. > > I understand from previous postings to this mailing list that a number > of > you will be using other browsers. If you have any problems viewing my > site, > please let me know what operating system and browser you're using > (including > versions), and I'll see what I can do. I do NOT have access to a > Macintosh > here, although we have an older model at work that does a great job of > collecting dust. I use Safari 1.2, and except for seeming a touch slow, the website worked perfectly for me. I may be wrong (as a non-techie) but I understand that the engines for Safari and Mozilla are the same. Ken Gorelick From pulmon at comcast.net Sun Feb 22 16:05:47 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 19:05:47 -0500 Subject: Looking for website expertise Message-ID: <084FBA1C-6594-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> I have been on the Dragaera list since June and have very much enjoyed it. I have also observed a level of expertise in website design that appears substantial. I am looking for someone with whom I can discuss a website for a biotech company. I can't start the website now for a variety of reasons (lack of money is high on the list--we have a grant but it does not cover that kind of work). I would like to post to the Dragaera list to see if there would be any interest in an off-line, information-only, no-committment discussion (e.g., what it takes, what is needed, what it costs, what are the risks, etc.) The site would be non-commercial (we have nothing to sell). Anyway, if you have this kind of expertise and would be willing to help, please let me know. Thanks, Ken Gorelick From dd-b at dd-b.net Sun Feb 22 16:35:00 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 18:35:00 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: (Bryan Newell's message of "Sun, 22 Feb 2004 16:51:51 -0600") References: Message-ID: Seems to work fine in Opera 7.23. Which is interesting, seeing how often I run into sites that *don't* work fine. Good to see it up, and content starting to appear. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 17:57:48 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 19:57:48 -0600 Subject: Geography: A Note on Measurements of Distance Message-ID: And here's the second article, which explains my reasoning on unit conversion (miles to leagues) and what it means to be "north" of something. At the ends of certain lines you'll see a number. On my website, this is a footnote that will popup the relevant text. Also, there is a diagram that I cannot reproduce here; its location is indicated with [image] below. Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) The sign out front promised me absolutely nothing. Just my kind of place. --begin document-- A Note on Measurements of Distance Paarfi has a lot to say about measurements of distance. He mainly uses four units: 1. Miles 2. Leagues 3. Kilometers 4. Days I. How Long is a League? There were apparently two different lengths for a league in use. 80 Moreover, Dragaerans and Easterners measure leagues differently. 75 There are only two places I could find where Paarfi stated both the miles and leagues, and in both cases the ratio appears to be approximately 3 miles = 1 league, which is how we compare statue miles and leagues. The first is Pel, stating that he traveled more than 1500 miles, and more than 500 leagues. 158 Note, however, that Pel qualifies his comparison by referring to how the leagues were measured. The second is the distance from the county of Bellows to a crashed floating castle. The distance from Bellows to the Castle is 60 or 70 miles. Morrolan travels 15 leagues to Nacine. 201 And from Nacine, the ruins are only 15 miles away. 213 15 leagues + 15 miles = 60 or 70 miles, so 15 leagues = 45 or 55 miles, which again works out to about 3 miles per league. And the second text also says that 15 miles = 3 or 4 leagues + some maneuvering. Accordingly, I will use a ratio of 3 miles = 1 league for converting miles to leagues, unless the text specifically indicates otherwise. II. How Far Can You Travel in a Day? Take a look at these two sites: Jo Beverly's collection of English Facts Jean Ross Ewing, The Horse in Romance, handout one-side two (My apologies for the Romance-theme above, it's what I found on Google) The only major marches on foot that I recall are by Morrolan and his witches in The Paths of the Dead, and Sethra's army in Dragon. Almost all the other major trips are made by horseback or carriage. These can be broken into two categories: 1. Using the same horse the whole journey Khaavren goes between 15 and 20 miles a day over moderate terrain on horseback. 198 Zerika and company start out at 5 leagues a day, then go to 10 leagues a day on their LONG journey to Deathgate Falls on horseback. 295 I'm going to assume 20 miles per day for this mode of travel, when the text does not specify. 2. Swapping tired horses for fresh ones at the posts. Switching horses every twenty miles, under ideal conditions, with the right sort of horse, eating in the saddle or not at all, and not sleeping, it is possible to travel 500 miles in a 30 hour period...that is, it is possible to average more than 16mph. - Steven Brust I think Brust is describing the absolute max here. Pel travels 1500 miles in 6 days using the post. 158 Which works out to be half that, 250 miles per day. I'm going to assume 250 miles per day for this mode of travel, when the text does not specify. III. As the Jhereg Flies One major problem facing us in translating the text into an actual map is the question of how the distances are being measured. 1. In a straight line 2. Following the least line of resistance (existing roads, or around rough terrain). There is only one text reference I found that refers to this. When Ibronka and Roannac are planning their travel from Hartre to Adrilankha, they mention that it is 500km, and even longer if they follow the coast. 190 I will assume straight line measurements, when the text does not specify. IV. Directions Another thing worth considering is what a direction means. What all is encompassed by "north", or "northeast", in other words. At one extreme, you can say that "north" means "not south". That is, a 180 degree arc centered around the specified direction. On the other, you can say that "north" means "more north than northeast or northwest". That is, a 45 degree arc centered around the specified direction. In the middle, you can say that "north" means "more north than west or east". That is, a 90 degree arc centered around the specified direction. [image] In this case, I'm going to use the moderate range, unless the text indicates otherwise. From genji_77 at hotmail.com Sun Feb 22 17:59:59 2004 From: genji_77 at hotmail.com (Genji) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 17:59:59 -0800 Subject: Any chance for audio books? References: Message-ID: Does anyone know if there has been any formal consideration of making audio books from Mr. Brust's works? I spend a great deal of time in my car and the rush hour commutes would certainly much more bearable if I could spend it listening to Vlad's exploits. hehehe Man, I would be all to happy to shell out the cash for my copies and listen to them over and over. I think I remember a similar discussion on this several months ago, but can't remember what the outcome was. Genji From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 18:06:45 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 20:06:45 -0600 Subject: Geography: A Note on Measurements of Distance In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I missed a reference for Section I (How Long is a League): --begin document-- I. How Long is a League? There were apparently two different lengths for a league in use. 80 Moreover, Dragaerans and Easterners measure leagues differently. 75 There are only three places I could find where distances were stated in both the miles and leagues, and in both cases the ratio appears to be approximately 3 miles = 1 league, which is how we compare statue miles and leagues. The first is Pel, stating that he traveled more than 1500 miles, and more than 500 leagues. 158 Note, however, that Pel qualifies his comparison by referring to how the leagues were measured. The second is the distance from the county of Bellows to a crashed floating castle. The distance from Bellows to the Castle is 60 or 70 miles. Morrolan travels 15 leagues to Nacine. 201 And from Nacine, the ruins are only 15 miles away. 213 15 leagues + 15 miles = 60 or 70 miles, so 15 leagues = 45 or 55 miles, which again works out to about 3 miles per league. And the second text also says that 15 miles = 3 or 4 leagues + some maneuvering. --begin new text-- The third is a cross-narrator example. Vlad says that Dzur Mountain is about 200 miles from Adrilankha. 28 Paarfi says the distance is 65 or 70 leagues. 155 --end new text-- Accordingly, I will use a ratio of 3 miles = 1 league for converting miles to leagues, unless the text specifically indicates otherwise. From Gaertk at aol.com Sun Feb 22 18:02:37 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 21:02:37 -0500 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera Message-ID: <60FADEEA.780D02C3.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/22/2004 5:51:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Bryan Newell" writes: > I have begun work on my new website devoted to mapping the > world of Dragaera. > > You can access this website by going to http://bryann.net > and clicking on the Steven Brust object on the shelf at the > top (btw, the stylized Jhereg on this object is one of my > musings for the Cycle, another project I am working on). > > My website has been developed using a web application I > wrote at work. ?We have almost fifty customers using > products based on this web application, and every single > one of them uses Internet Explorer 6 on all of their > machines. ?Accordingly, 99% of my work has gone into making > our web application work for this browser ONLY. > > I understand from previous postings to this mailing list > that a number of you will be using other browsers. ?If you > have any problems viewing my site, please let me know what > operating system and browser you're using (including > versions), and I'll see what I can do. ?I do NOT have > access to a Macintosh here, although we have an older model > at work that does a great job of collecting dust. I'm using Netscape 4.8 and Win98SE (mainly because I hate the look and feel of newer versions), and I can't get past the "Please wait.." message on either URL above. And W3C's validator couldn't even parse your site: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fbryann.net%2F > The novels and their narrators are: > > Brokedown Palace > Athyra > - ?whose narrator is not known to me These are both narrated in third person, so the only source of errors is Brust (and possibly his editors). If you haven't already, take a look at these websites: http://cracksandshards.com/ http://www.panix.com/~alexx/timeline.txt --KG From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 18:11:01 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 20:11:01 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > Seems to work fine in Opera 7.23. Which is interesting, seeing how > often I run into sites that *don't* work fine. [rant on] I made a decision early on to never check what kind of browser a user was using. So many web sites do some sort of version check to decide what a browser can and cannot do. If (IE6) blah else if (IE5) blah else if (Netscape 6) blah... This means, right off the bat, they have limited themselves to a specific set of browsers, and, moreover, they have to rework their sites every time a new version of their supported browser(s) is(are) released. I chose instead to test the specific method I was trying to utilize. If (document.all) blah else if (document.layers) blah... This means a lot of browsers I did not necessarily plan for will work. If they support the method, they work. Regardless of version or developer. [rant off] > Good to see it up, and content starting to appear. I have a few more preparatory articles to go, then I will hopefully begin actually putting up some maps. Bryan From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 18:24:52 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 20:24:52 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: <60FADEEA.780D02C3.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: > I'm using Netscape 4.8 and Win98SE (mainly because I hate the > look and feel of newer versions), and I can't get past the > "Please wait.." message on either URL above. That's because I'm using a hidden div for that. I turned this off (it's not really necessary, it is just there to let the user know their browser hasn't frozen... none of these pages should take long enough that this becomes an issue). Try it again, and let me know if it works for you. > And W3C's validator couldn't even parse your site: > http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fbryann.net%2F Validators can't parse my site, because I generate all html "on the fly" using cgi-bin executables. > > The novels and their narrators are: > > > > Brokedown Palace > > Athyra > > - ?whose narrator is not known to me > > These are both narrated in third person, so the only source > of errors is Brust (and possibly his editors). Well, I am "playing Brust's game". It is my understanding that his "device" for presenting the stories is that they are real, and being narrated to him by individuals who actually exist in Dragaera. Therefore, I'm assuming these two novels are also being narrated by someone "real" in Dragaera. If this is confusing to people, I'll drop it. I'm not entirely sure how to proceed on this subject. > If you haven't already, take a look at these websites: > http://cracksandshards.com/ I didn't see much about geography on this site, but that does not in the least detract from its magnificence. > http://www.panix.com/~alexx/timeline.txt Another great page, I just wish the timeline would get updated with Lord of Castle Black. :) Bryan From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 18:26:04 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 20:26:04 -0600 Subject: Where was Dolivar? Message-ID: Where was Dolivar's soul during the 200 thousand years between his death and eventual reincarnation as Vlad? I'd bet money he was nowhere near Kieron, which means he wasn't hanging out in the Paths of the Dead, and I imagine it was too risky to be reincarnated as a Dragaeran (since, upon his death, he might get sent over the Falls). I'm betting he spent all that time in the East... If the average lifespan is 60 years, that's over 3,000 Easterner lifespans... Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) She had a smile for me to wear. From mam at theworld.com Sun Feb 22 19:27:36 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:27:36 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: #>Pronounced "ay", with the difference you'd expect before "r", and so #>obeying the rule. (Note that "they" would be spelled "thei" if we #>didn't have a strong prejudice against writing final "i" that has led #>us to write it "y" for centuries.) # #Quibble: *Are* they pronounced "ay"? To my ear (here we go with #pronunciation problems again), the sound is not the same as in #"weigh". Mon ami, reread what I wrote: 'Pronounced "ay", with the difference you'd expect before "r", and so obeying the rule.' That *is* the difference you're referring to. # http://dictionary.reference.com/ indicates that they are different; #"their" says "?" (a-carat) rather than "a-superscript-bar" (for #"weigh"). [circumflex, not caret, and certainly not carat] #The OED indicates different vowel sounds as well. Look at where those different vowel sounds are used. #> Deis. #>Where'd you get this one? The OED has it only as a spelling of "dais" #>used in the 13th to 16th centuries. #> # #Yup. I was using dictionary.reference.com for the above, feeling too #lazy to log into my OED access, and misspellings brought up some #various words with "ei" in, including the above obsolete one. #That's probably a cheat as well. Uh-huh. :-) -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Sun Feb 22 19:29:14 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:29:14 -0500 Subject: zelazny In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Steve Hubbell wrote: #Sorry, had to reply to this one, #In the last five Amber short stories Zelazny wrote just before he died, the #POV was from several people, Corwin, Merlin, Merlin's gold chain (can't #remember it's name), and Luke (Brand's son). Frakir, and it was a semisentient strangling cord, not a gold chain; you're thinking of Vlad's Spellbreaker. Where can I find those stories?! -- Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Sun Feb 22 19:32:08 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:32:08 -0500 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <20040222114510.GB21278@infodancer.org> Message-ID: On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Matthew Hunter wrote: #However, I think the presence of Lady Teldra in the form of a #long dagger makes it somewhat more difficult for Vlad to use her #casually. And I think that's a very good thing for Vlad's moral #development. He has a Great Weapon now; a certain amount of #restraint is necessary. Should he resign himself to eating the #soul of anyone he crossed blades with, at least until Lady Teldra #wakes up? "Don't worry, it does what I tell it to", OWTTE. Morrolan, to his first Dragon opponent in the Paths of the Dead, who had looked nervously at Blackwand. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From mam at theworld.com Sun Feb 22 19:41:52 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:41:52 -0500 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: Message-ID: a. looks good in IE6 on Windows XP b. "looks good" in general. But bright green on green-black, while it looks classy, is not the easiest combo to read. c. nitpick: compatble/bility, not with an "a". d. May I put a link to this on Cracks and Shards? e. How about links to other Brust sites? -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From jtoth at megrez.org Sun Feb 22 19:42:46 2004 From: jtoth at megrez.org (Jim Toth) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:42:46 -0500 Subject: zelazny In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20040223034246.GA13124@castor.megrez.org> On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 10:29:14PM -0500, Mark A Mandel (mam at theworld.com) said: > On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Steve Hubbell wrote: > > #Sorry, had to reply to this one, > #In the last five Amber short stories Zelazny wrote just before he died, the > #POV was from several people, Corwin, Merlin, Merlin's gold chain (can't > #remember its name), and Luke (Brand's son). > > Frakir, and it was a semisentient strangling cord, not a gold chain; > you're thinking of Vlad's Spellbreaker. Thanks for saving me the trouble of the correction. :-) > Where can I find those stories?! They (and a number of other stories) are in _Manna from Heaven_, which just came out from the Fantastic Book club, http://www.fantasticbookclub.com/. The title _Manna from Heaven_ is similar to _Unicorn Variations_ inasmuch as it has an almost-but-not-quite title story: "Mana from Heaven" and "Unicorn Variation", respectively. I don't have my Zelazny books (other than this new one) easily to hand; were any of his other collections titled like that? -- Jim Toth jtoth at megrez.org From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 19:54:56 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 21:54:56 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > b. "looks good" in general. But bright green on green-black, while it > looks classy, is not the easiest combo to read. This is true... What can I say, I cut my teeth on a "Reject 20" (I think that's what we called it--it was 14 years ago) with a black and green phosphorus screen; I've been hooked ever since. :) I've tried to space the text over far enough that it doesn't overwrite the green goo on the left; which should make it clearly readable (beyond the goo, it's a straight black background). > c. nitpick: compatble/bility, not with an "a". *blush* Thanks, it's corrected now. > d. May I put a link to this on Cracks and Shards? Yes. Of course, you might want to wait until I've actually got some maps on there. I've already received a couple of emails from people confused as to why there are no maps up yet (I'm working on it!). I've got a handful of articles I want to finish, then I'll start with two places I think I can map out very well: 1. The area around Mt. Bli'aard. 2. The Adrilankha/Castle Black/Dzur Mountain triangle. Beyond that, everything gets very speculative so far, especially west-to-north of Adrilankha. > e. How about links to other Brust sites? If you mean, can I put links to other sites on my site, yes. Is there an official list of active Brust websites out there? I know of yours, and the Time Line, and a couple that are referenced on Brust's webpage, and of course, dragaera.info. Bryan From matthew at infodancer.org Sun Feb 22 20:40:51 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:40:51 -0600 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: References: <20040222114510.GB21278@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <20040223044051.GE21278@infodancer.org> On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 10:32:08PM -0500, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Sun, 22 Feb 2004, Matthew Hunter wrote: > #However, I think the presence of Lady Teldra in the form of a > #long dagger makes it somewhat more difficult for Vlad to use her > #casually. And I think that's a very good thing for Vlad's moral > #development. He has a Great Weapon now; a certain amount of > #restraint is necessary. Should he resign himself to eating the > #soul of anyone he crossed blades with, at least until Lady Teldra > #wakes up? > "Don't worry, it does what I tell it to", OWTTE. Morrolan, to his first > Dragon opponent in the Paths of the Dead, who had looked nervously at > Blackwand. Note that Lady Teldra is not Blackwand. Note that Blackwand is presumably awake, while Lady Teldra is not. This is specifically why I included the qualifier "until Lady Teldra wakes up". -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 20:40:01 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:40:01 -0600 Subject: Geography: Has Castle Black Moved? Message-ID: This article is my attempt to establish that, while Castle Black is capable of movement, it has remained in (or returned to) the place it was originally raised throughout the novels. Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) >From such lofty heights I have fallen, and only the worms await me. --begin document-- Has Castle Black Moved? Morrolan lives in a floating castle named Castle Black. This castle appears to be capable of movement. There are two references to Castle Black's ability to move. The first is when Tazendra raises it. She is asked if she can move it, and she responds yes, but it will take 5 or 6 years to travel the 50 miles to Dzur Mountain. 235 The second is when Kragar describes it to Vlad. He refers to where Castle Black "usually" is. 29 The Tazendra quote also sets the speed at which it moves: roughly 10 miles/year. Of course, it is entirely possible that Morrolan has found a way to make it move faster, but there is no text to support such a claim, so I hold off making it, unless it becomes necessary. I. Where Was Castle Black in The Lord of Castle Black? Morrolan discovered there was a crashed floating castle in his ancestral homeland, the County of Southmoor. 213 On the site of this crashed floating castle, he found two walls that had survived the fall. He used these to construct a temple. 217 When Kana's army threatened him, Tazendra lifted the temple (and some surrounding land) into the air. 235 Morrolan named his newly floating temple Castle Black. 240 So, any text references to this crashed floating castle, Morrolan's encampment, or Castle Black in this book all refer to the same physical location. At this time, it was 40 or 45 miles south of Dzur Mountain. 225 II. Where Was Castle Black in Taltos? Taltos takes place about 240 years after The Lord of Castle Black, which is enough time to move 2,400 miles. According to Vlad, it is about 50 miles from Dzur Mountain. 29 Is "40 or 45 miles" the same as "about 50 miles"? Even if it is, there's nothing to "pin it" in place. Maybe it was 40 or 45 miles South of Dzur Mountain, but now it's about 50 miles west. III. Where Was Castle Black in Dragon? The chapters in Dragon take place immediately after Taltos (the interludes take place after Yendi), so I'd say Castle Black is in the exact same place as it was in Taltos. At this time, there does not appear to be a village beneath Castle Black 268 when I believe there should be one 217 although there is a river, which matches The Lord of Castle Black. 225 On the other hand, the river in The Lord of Castle Black was moving southward. No speed is given for this southward migration, so it's unclear if the river under it in that novel should have moved a significant distance within 240 years. This suggests that Castle Black might have moved. However, it is also possible that Vlad simply ignores the village below in his narration. IV. Where Was Castle Black in Yendi? Yendi takes place about 2 years after Taltos/Dragon, so Castle Black might have moved up to 20 miles (if it spent the entire 2 years moving). Herein lies the most specific location of Castle Black in any of the novels. Castle Black is about 175 miles from Adrilankha, and to the east Vlad can see the "tip" of Dzur Mountain. 16 It is also floating over a small village (although we don't know if it's the same village as the one in The Lord of Castle Black). There is no mention of a river. The reference to the "tip" of Dzur Mountain to the east is a bit confusing to me. He doesn't say "peak", which I would have expected. Does "tip" imply the "leading edge" of the mountain (the foot of the mountain)? V. Where Was Castle Black in Jhereg? Jhereg takes place about 1 year after Yendi, so Castle Black might have moved up to 10 miles. Castle Black is around 200 miles from Adrilankha. 5 and 7 The second text reference implies the distance is actually LESS than 200 miles. If it moved directly away from Adrilankha, it could now be, at most, about 185 miles away. VI. Where Was Castle Black in Orca? Orca takes place about 4 years after Jhereg, so Castle Black might have moved up to 40 miles since then. The reference to Castle Black here is very weak. Vlad tells Kiera that some of the terrain around Northport reminds him of the prairie around Castle Black and to the west of Dzur Mountain. 264 One way to read this is that there is a prairie surrounding Castle Black, and Dzur Mountain is to the east of that prairie, which lines up with the other text above. VII. But What Does it Mean? The only text that really makes me wonder if Castle Black has moved is the fact that it is south of Dzur Mountain when raised, but the "tip" can be seen to the east 240 years later. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure what the "tip" is. If it's the leading edge of the mountain's foot, Dzur Mountain could be northeast of Castle Black, which satisfies both quotes. Sethra's lair being more north than east, but the mountain extends far enough south to be more east than north of Castle Black. The main reason I don't think it has moved is because no one says it has. At no point does Vlad mention it moving, which is the sort of detail I'd expect >from him. If it has moved, I'd say that movement took place between The Lord of Castle Black and Taltos. Even if I accept this is true, and exclude the information in The Lord of Castle Black when trying to locate Castle Black in "Vlad's Time", there is enough information in the other novels to pinpoint its location fairly precisely. However, based on the text referenced above, I do not see any indication it actually has moved, so I will go forward under the assumption it has essentially remained in the same location (or always returned to the original site) for the last 240 years. From matthew at infodancer.org Sun Feb 22 20:48:21 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:48:21 -0600 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: References: <20040222114510.GB21278@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <20040223044821.GF21278@infodancer.org> On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 10:35:32AM -0600, Bryan Newell wrote: > > > After reading Issola, the regret I have is that the morganti weapon that > > > was transformed was a long dagger, rather than the fencing weapon that > Vlad > > > is used to. He is, of course versed in the use of hand to hand dagger > > > fighting, but his preffered method is foil and dagger. Now Iceflame is > a > > > dagger, but both Blackwand and Pathfinder are full sized swords, and > thus > > > more effective in battle, especially since Great weps AND morganti weps > can > > > kill with the smallest scratch. The dagger used in the left hand is for > > > defence and coup de grace strokes, not for light strokes. > > > > > > From the Issola reading, I get the impression that Lady Teldra is just a > > > bit shorter and much thinner than a machete, more like a thin viking > sax. > > > I just think that she would have prefered a larger home. )) > > > > I got the same basic impression. That particular tidbit has > > always struck a discordant note for me; first, it's very little > > like what you would expect Vlad to use, and second, it's nothing > > like you would expect Teldra herself to prefer. I could *easily* > > perceive Teldra's personality in a slim, decorative and > > deceptively-delicate rapier or similar fencing weapon; it would > > fit her personality to a T and match Vlad's own choice of arms > > as well. > > Issola, hc pg 88 - "It was long for a knife and short for a sword. > Impractical in every way, and was probably not even balanced all that well, > most likely being a bit blade-heavy. This, of course, was useful for > chopping away in battle" > > Issola, hc pg 98 - "It was a narrow blade, very light and useful-feeling in > my hand, about eighteen inches long, and not nearly as blade-heavy as I'd > suspected it would be." > > Issola, hc pg 245 - "It fit my hand like an additional finger, like it > should have been there all along, or maybe it had been there all along and > I'd never been aware of it." I think you missed the hypothetical. > Per fencing.net, the epee is the closest of the three modern fencing weapons > (epee, foil, sabre) to what was actually used in medieval times. Renaissance times. The medieval period was well over before rapiers came into place. > So, an images.google.com search for "epee and dagger" returned the > following: > http://www.imperialweapons.com/swords/iberia/1032-GT.JPG > If you read the specs on the image, the sword has a 37" inch blade, and the > dagger a 17.5" blade, which lines up nicely with Godslayer being used as the > off weapon. Which is exactly what I am pointing out. > Can you imagine how DISTRACTING it would be to fight someone whose > off-weapon was a Great Weapon? It's not like Blackwand, where you just have > to avoid being hit by the one sword, all your attention would be focused on > Godslayer, which isn't the "primary" weapon! I imagine it would get somewhat awkward, but frankly, the sort of people Vlad would need Godslayer against are not likely to be fencing with him. > > However, I think the presence of Lady Teldra in the form of a > > long dagger makes it somewhat more difficult for Vlad to use her > > casually. And I think that's a very good thing for Vlad's moral > > development. He has a Great Weapon now; a certain amount of > > restraint is necessary. Should he resign himself to eating the > > soul of anyone he crossed blades with, at least until Lady Teldra > > wakes up? > I believe that Morrolan has demonstrated that the owners of the Great > Weapons _decide_ when their weapons eat souls. Maybe that is just a trait > of Blackwand, but I got the feeling all Great Weapons worked that way. Why does everyone miss the qualifier? > Plus, as I theorized above, I think in a straight up fight (not an > assassination), most of Vlad's opponents would fall to the sword, not the > dagger (and then he could pick and choose whether to "finish them off" with > Godslayer). This is basically exactly what I said. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From dd-b at dd-b.net Sun Feb 22 20:55:21 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:55:21 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: (Bryan Newell's message of "Sun, 22 Feb 2004 20:24:52 -0600") References: Message-ID: "Bryan Newell" writes: >> And W3C's validator couldn't even parse your site: >> http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fbryann.net%2F > > Validators can't parse my site, because I generate all html "on the fly" > using cgi-bin executables. That doesn't matter; they simply make an http connection to the site and look at the content delivered. My dynamic sites validate fine (except when they don't, when I've got something screwed up). -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From dd-b at dd-b.net Sun Feb 22 20:57:01 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:57:01 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: (Bryan Newell's message of "Sun, 22 Feb 2004 21:54:56 -0600") References: Message-ID: "Bryan Newell" writes: >> e. How about links to other Brust sites? > > If you mean, can I put links to other sites on my site, yes. > > Is there an official list of active Brust websites out there? > > I know of yours, and the Time Line, and a couple that are referenced on > Brust's webpage, and of course, dragaera.info. We think of ourselves as "official", if not necessarily definitive, at dragaera.info. (And I'm planning to link your geography site, I'm just holding off to let it get a little further along before doing so.) Always happy to have other sites we should link to pointed out. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From alexx at panix.com Sun Feb 22 21:19:00 2004 From: alexx at panix.com (Alexx Kay) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 00:19:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: from "Bryan Newell" at Feb 22, 2004 08:24:52 PM Message-ID: <200402230519.i1N5J0a15445@panix2.panix.com> > > http://www.panix.com/~alexx/timeline.txt > > Another great page, I just wish the timeline would get updated with Lord of > Castle Black. :) Yeah, yeah. I got about half way through, then got distracted by other stuff. Thanks for the reminder. Perhaps I'll get to it sometime this week... Alexx Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers. alexx at carolingiaSPAMBL@CK.org http://www.panix.com/~alexx "Do you know back at the turn of the century how long it took to cross Manhattan on horse? What the average speed was? Seven miles an hour. You know what it is today? Exactly the same, seven miles an hour." -- John Denver From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 22 21:33:55 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 23:33:55 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > >> And W3C's validator couldn't even parse your site: > >> http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fbryann.net%2F > > > > Validators can't parse my site, because I generate all html "on the fly" > > using cgi-bin executables. > > That doesn't matter; they simply make an http connection to the site > and look at the content delivered. My dynamic sites validate fine > (except when they don't, when I've got something screwed up). Interesting. I swear I tried validating it before, and it couldn't see the html unless I saved it as a .html file first. Perhaps it was a different validator, or perhaps I'm just forgetful. I see now, however, that you are correct; I tried running the link above, and it errors out because there is no DOCTYPE declared on my page. I hadn't realized that was a fatal error... It certainly isn't fatal in any of the browsers I've used. Is that only required so the validator knows HOW to validate your html? Or are browsers also supposed to reject your page if it doesn't have a DOCTYPE declared? Anyone know? Bryan From jazzfish at softhome.net Sun Feb 22 22:00:32 2004 From: jazzfish at softhome.net (Tucker) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 01:00:32 -0500 Subject: zelazny In-Reply-To: <20040223034246.GA13124@castor.megrez.org> References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.1.20040223005442.02c9b3e8@pro.softhome.net> >The title _Manna from Heaven_ is similar to _Unicorn Variations_ >inasmuch as it has an almost-but-not-quite title story: "Mana from >Heaven" and "Unicorn Variation", respectively. I don't have my >Zelazny books (other than this new one) easily to hand; were any of >his other collections titled like that? Mm. . . not that I'm aware. _The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth_ ["the one with the honking long title and the dead fish on the cover"] and _The Last Defender of Camelot_ were named (exactly) for stories in their books; _Frost and Fire_ was more or less named for "Permafrost" and, uh, another story in the collection that I can't remember. (I don't think it was "24 Views. . ." but it might have been.) _Four For Tomorrow_ was, well, a collection of four stories. I'm unaware of any other collections out there. (And I'm duly envious of you for having gotten your copy of MfH. Still waiting on mine.) Is there somewhere an online list of stories that Brust has written? Off the top of my head, all I can come up with are the five from the Liaveks and the one in _Sandman: Book of Dreams_, though I think there was one in the Zelazny tribute _Lord of the Fantastic_ as well. ---- "I can't think of much worse than spending a lifetime doing something that isn't what you want to do." --Neil Gaiman, 2003-05-18 From saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com Sun Feb 22 22:39:47 2004 From: saint_erythros at lameassbitch.com (M J) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 01:39:47 -0500 Subject: zelazny Message-ID: <200402230139.AA424935626@amish2000.com> ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Tucker Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 01:00:32 -0500 >Is there somewhere an online list of stories that Brust has written? Off >the top of my head, all I can come up with are the five from the Liaveks >and the one in _Sandman: Book of Dreams_, though I think there was one in >the Zelazny tribute _Lord of the Fantastic_ as well. I swear that I've read a story of his called "Czuskari" (spelling? I KNOW that's not right), but I can't remember if it was in one of the Datlow/Windling-edited "Year's Best..." collections or not. ? MJ From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Sun Feb 22 23:40:56 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 02:40:56 -0500 Subject: DOCTYPE declarations (Was: Re: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4039AE88.6060801@earthlink.net> Bryan Newell wrote: >>>>And W3C's validator couldn't even parse your site: >>>>http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fbryann.net%2F >>>> >>>> >>>Validators can't parse my site, because I generate all html "on the fly" >>>using cgi-bin executables. >>> >>> >>That doesn't matter; they simply make an http connection to the site >>and look at the content delivered. My dynamic sites validate fine >>(except when they don't, when I've got something screwed up). >> >> > >Interesting. I swear I tried validating it before, and it couldn't see the >html unless I saved it as a .html file first. Perhaps it was a different >validator, or perhaps I'm just forgetful. > >I see now, however, that you are correct; I tried running the link above, >and it errors out because there is no DOCTYPE declared on my page. > >I hadn't realized that was a fatal error... It certainly isn't fatal in any >of the browsers I've used. Is that only required so the validator knows HOW >to validate your html? Or are browsers also supposed to reject your page if >it doesn't have a DOCTYPE declared? > >Anyone know? > > I'm not exactly an authority on the subject, but this is what I know: Not having a doctype declaration isn't a fatal error per se, but if you want to validate your html, you need to be able to tell the validator which specification you're trying to validate against. Also, doctypes are essential to the proper rendering and functioning of web documents in W3C-standards-compliant browsers. If you don't include a doctype, most browsers go into quirks mode in an attempt to divine what you are trying to do (Opera is an exception; it always tries to render pages in standards-compliant mode). In quirks mode, browsers try to render pages in a backwards-compatible way, rendering CSS the way browsers did in the early 90s (i.e. badly if at all) and generally not doing what you expect them to do. Further, quirks modes between browsers are different, so your pages may vary greatly in how much they don't look like what you wanted, depending on the browser. Using a proper doctype for browsers that comply with W3C standards should theoretically render pages the same way across all browsers, but buggy support and constantly evolving standards make this difficult sometimes. Jose -- Jose Marquez \ Cthulhu 2004 jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ Why vote for http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ the lesser evil? From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Feb 23 00:18:26 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 00:18:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Geography: Has Castle Black Moved? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Two quick comments - any calculations based on Tazendra's quick guesstimate about her ability to move Castle Black, coming just after the Orb's reappearance, are unlikely to convince me that they have much bearing on Morrolan's ability to move the castle after a few hundred years of study. And note that on pg 21 (ppb) of _Dragon_ Vlad is teleported to CB and looks down (which I have trouble believing) while recovering. The landscape he sees appears to possibly represent a rune; he speculates it might be telling the castle not to fall. I think the landscape information might be echoed elsewhere - anyway this passage seems to suggest Vlad believes the castle is sessile, as it were. In a totally unrelated note, I just saw The Battle of Algiers. I recommend it to people writing about uprisings in poor quarters. From amadandedallas at yahoo.com Mon Feb 23 00:12:31 2004 From: amadandedallas at yahoo.com (James D'Amadan) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 00:12:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: zelazny In-Reply-To: <200402230139.AA424935626@amish2000.com> Message-ID: <20040223081231.15376.qmail@web40004.mail.yahoo.com> --- M J wrote: > > I swear that I've read a story of his called > "Czuskari" (spelling? I KNOW that's not right), but > I can't remember if it was in one of the > Datlow/Windling-edited "Year's Best..." collections > or not. > "Csucskari" was printed in the first Windling/Datlow Best of collection. It is just the fairy tale from The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. Besides the Count Dashif stories from the Liavek collections and "Valosag and Elet" from Book of Dreams there is also "Drift" from Space Opera (a folktale retold), "When the Bow Breaks" in The Essential Bordertown (nominated for a Nebula), "Calling Pittsburgh" in Lord of the Fantastic, and the poem "Attention Shoppers" in the Jane Yolen anthology Xanadu. Lessee, did I miss anything? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From pete.flugstad at icon-labs.com Mon Feb 23 06:33:48 2004 From: pete.flugstad at icon-labs.com (Pete Flugstad) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 08:33:48 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: <8A6AD2FB-658F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> References: <8A6AD2FB-658F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <403A0F4C.5080609@icon-labs.com> Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > I use Safari 1.2, and except for seeming a touch slow, the website > worked perfectly for me. I may be wrong (as a non-techie) but I > understand that the engines for Safari and Mozilla are the same. Just FYI, but no. Safari is based on the KHTML rendering engine in Konqueror, which is the browser/file manager in the KDE desktop suite. Mozilla is based on the Gecko rendering engine, which is custom built for Mozilla. Apple chose the one in Konqueror as it was simpler (less baroque) and had less baggage. Pete From zarkon at illrepute.org Mon Feb 23 06:44:13 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:44:13 -0500 (EST) Subject: Amber, points of view (was: Robert Jordan) In-Reply-To: <200402211643.AA217252060@amish2000.com> References: <200402211643.AA217252060@amish2000.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, M J wrote: @> >>"M J"? wrote on?Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:30:14 -0500 @> >> @> >>... Dude, there's Corwin, and then there's his really annoying son @> >> Merlin.??No other POVs as far as I know.??(And trust me, by the @> >> middle of the Merlin chronicles, I would've been dying for a POV @> >> from even Flora.) @> @> >Sorry, had to reply to this one, @> >In the last five Amber short stories Zelazny wrote just before he @> >died, the POV was from several people, Corwin, Merlin, Merlin's gold @> >chain (can't remember it's name), and Luke (Brand's son). @> @> The gold chain was Frakir. She made me go OO. @> @> Do they really count, though? It's still Merlin telling the story; @> they're just telling a story to _him_. Can't remember if this has come up yet, but in the first series, Random is an authentic PoV character for an entire chapter ("What I Did on my Summer Vacation to Evil Shadows Filled with Flying Rocks"). If it were just Corwin saying "Yeah, Random told me this long story about rocks. There was a dragon in it.", you'd have a point. That's not the way it happens, though; it's told directly in his voice. The short stories mentioned above work in essentially the same way. So, yes, you're getting Corwin or Merlin's version of some story somebody told him, but on the other hand you're also getting someone's version of a story Corwin or Merlin told him, and we're presumably not assuming that the series has zero PoV characters, so... From mneme at io.com Mon Feb 23 06:56:10 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 08:56:10 -0600 Subject: Geography: Has Castle Black Moved? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <16442.5258.551201.599815@fnord.io.com> Philip Hart writes: >Two quick comments - any calculations based on Tazendra's quick >guesstimate about her ability to move Castle Black, coming just >after the Orb's reappearance, are unlikely to convince me that >they have much bearing on Morrolan's ability to move the castle >after a few hundred years of study. Uh...yeah. I mean, they're both wizards, but still... >speculates it might be telling the castle not to fall. I think the >landscape information might be echoed elsewhere - anyway this passage >seems to suggest Vlad believes the castle is sessile, as it were. It's clear that Castle Black has a "customary" location. However, I seem to remember, and I do not think I do so incorrectly, that Castle Black is, in Dragon, moved to overfly the battle. If I am noit correct (and I rarely am), then it would seem that Morollan's home is still quite mobile (when he wishes it to be). -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From mneme at io.com Mon Feb 23 06:49:44 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 08:49:44 -0600 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: References: <20040222114510.GB21278@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <16442.4872.205403.838176@fnord.io.com> Bryan Newell writes: >Issola, hc pg 88 - "It was long for a knife and short for a sword. >Impractical in every way, and was probably not even balanced all that well, >most likely being a bit blade-heavy. This, of course, was useful for >chopping away in battle" > >Issola, hc pg 98 - "It was a narrow blade, very light and useful-feeling in >my hand, about eighteen inches long, and not nearly as blade-heavy as I'd >suspected it would be." > >Issola, hc pg 245 - "It fit my hand like an additional finger, like it >should have been there all along, or maybe it had been there all along and >I'd never been aware of it." Interesting. Almost as if Vlad is being "seduced" by the blade. But yes, 18 inches is a perfectly respectable size for a main gauche. (though I use a main droite). >Per fencing.net, the epee is the closest of the three modern fencing weapons >(epee, foil, sabre) to what was actually used in medieval times. Um. Sorta; Epee is just french for "sword". Sabre is actually closer in use, since it's a cut primary weapon. OTOH, what was used in "medieval times" isn't really relevant to dragaera -- vlad's weapon choice seems to be a light rapier (ie, probably 30-36 inches long, light as a feather), and he's trained with fencing sabre. [and the last time I started talking about what this means about weapon's technology in modern Dragaera/Fenario (or wherever in the east Vlad's family comes from), Steve threteaned to write a rant about historical accuracy in fantasy] >So, an images.google.com search for "epee and dagger" returned the >following: > >http://www.imperialweapons.com/swords/iberia/1032-GT.JPG The dagger is an 18 inch flexi-dagger (well, 17.5, as you say), which is one of the types of blades used for renn-style fencing. But the blade is nowhere near an epee -- it's a schlager blade [um...designed for menseur, the German dueling game that the brow scars and monicles come from], used as a -rapier- simulator, with the blade mounted sideways the edges of a rapier should be lined up with the quillions, but in this case, they seem to be at 90 degrees to it; no, I have no idea why. I -have- used a double-wide 40" epee blade (ie, both wider and longer than a modern fencing epee, but of the same basic design) as a rapier simulator, and it does do a decent job of simulating what in modern parlance would be a 17th century rapier (wheras the kind of rapier Vlad seems to use might be a 18th century rapier, aka "smallsword". >Can you imagine how DISTRACTING it would be to fight someone whose >off-weapon was a Great Weapon? It's not like Blackwand, where you just have >to avoid being hit by the one sword, all your attention would be focused on >Godslayer, which isn't the "primary" weapon! *giggle* Yeah, I can see this -- plus, you have to worry, every time he does a blade parry, that that damned Great Weapon is going to strike at your -arm-, with a scratch deadly enough to kill. >I believe that Morrolan has demonstrated that the owners of the Great >Weapons _decide_ when their weapons eat souls. Maybe that is just a trait >of Blackwand, but I got the feeling all Great Weapons worked that way. That's the impression I get as well. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Feb 23 10:27:36 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:27:36 -0600 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: Bryan Newell's message of 22 February 2004 References: Message-ID: <16442.17944.116938.714159@gw.dd-b.net> Bryan Newell writes on 22 February 2004 at 23:33:55 -0600 > > >> And W3C's validator couldn't even parse your site: > > >> http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fbryann.net%2F > > > > > > Validators can't parse my site, because I generate all html "on the fly" > > > using cgi-bin executables. > > > > That doesn't matter; they simply make an http connection to the site > > and look at the content delivered. My dynamic sites validate fine > > (except when they don't, when I've got something screwed up). > > Interesting. I swear I tried validating it before, and it couldn't see the > html unless I saved it as a .html file first. Perhaps it was a different > validator, or perhaps I'm just forgetful. > > I see now, however, that you are correct; I tried running the link above, > and it errors out because there is no DOCTYPE declared on my page. > > I hadn't realized that was a fatal error... It certainly isn't fatal in any > of the browsers I've used. Is that only required so the validator knows HOW > to validate your html? Or are browsers also supposed to reject your page if > it doesn't have a DOCTYPE declared? > > Anyone know? I've never had a browser complain about lack of DOCTYPE, or character encoding. The validator is absolutely insistent on both, however. I don't know if it helps them validate, or if it's just a requirement in the spec that no browser enforces, however. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From mr1 at rcosta.com Mon Feb 23 09:47:08 2004 From: mr1 at rcosta.com (Michele Riccio) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:47:08 -0500 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <20040222055622.77181.qmail@berkano.pair.com> References: Message-ID: <4039F64C.17236.B64181@localhost> > > Well. As I recall it was an exceptionally long dagger. A long > > dagger for a Dragaeraean is a VERY long dagger for an easterner. > > So, although not a foil or eppe (or whatever Vlad uses), it's > > certainly pretty long, and could probably be used pretty well. > > > > > -Jeff Knowing nothing about swords or sword fighting, I still wonder if the above is correct. Is a dagger nothing more than a sword that got "shrunk in the wash"? Could this very long dagger be used as a sword? Can anyone on this eclectic list enlighten me? M Michele Riccio mr1 at rcosta.com From mneme at io.com Mon Feb 23 11:49:39 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 13:49:39 -0600 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <4039F64C.17236.B64181@localhost> References: <4039F64C.17236.B64181@localhost> Message-ID: <16442.22867.498575.354634@fnord.io.com> Michele Riccio writes: >> > Well. As I recall it was an exceptionally long dagger. A long >> > dagger for a Dragaeraean is a VERY long dagger for an easterner. >> > So, although not a foil or eppe (or whatever Vlad uses), it's >> > certainly pretty long, and could probably be used pretty well. >> >> > -Jeff >Knowing nothing about swords or sword fighting, I still wonder if the >above is correct. Is a dagger nothing more than a sword that got >"shrunk in the wash"? Could this very long dagger be used as a >sword? Can anyone on this eclectic list enlighten me? No, a dagger is -not- simply a short sword -- the handling characteristics are usually significantly different. (and I'd expect that Dragaeran daggers would be fairly heavy pieces as their primary purpose would be to intercept big heavy cuts). Though one -can- fence "sword and shorter sword", FWIW. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Mon Feb 23 14:30:26 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:30:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Where was Dolivar? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040223223026.93173.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Newell wrote: > Where was Dolivar's soul during the 200 thousand years between his death > and > eventual reincarnation as Vlad? > > I'd bet money he was nowhere near Kieron, which means he wasn't hanging > out > in the Paths of the Dead, and I imagine it was too risky to be > reincarnated > as a Dragaeran (since, upon his death, he might get sent over the > Falls). > > I'm betting he spent all that time in the East... If the average > lifespan is > 60 years, that's over 3,000 Easterner lifespans... An interesting point, but do we have any reason to think that reincarnation is up to the character? I had the impression that it was up to the Lords of Judgement. Dolivar may have had to take his chances. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Mon Feb 23 14:25:40 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:25:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: <000201c3f8d6$06aa74f0$b17ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: <20040223222540.92197.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> --- Howard Brazee wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: David Silberstein [mailto:davids at kithrup.com] > Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 1:56 PM > To: Dragaera List > Subject: RE: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) > > On Sat, 21 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > > >On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, David Silberstein wrote: > > > >#On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: > ># > >#>"I before E except after C, > >#> Or when pronounced 'ay', as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'." > ># > >#Heinlein. Peirce. Sleight. Seize. Deice. Weir. Deil. > >#Deity. Deis. Their. Heir. > ># > > > > Their. > > Heir. > > A weird foreign sheik bought a heifer right after reveille. I can't remember the sentence I once came up with, but it was about Marcie Eisenstein's oneiric seizures and prescient fancies. The British has far fewer exceptions than the American one: When the sound is "ee", It's "I" before "E" Except after "C". (from the AUE FAQ at This rule simply gives up on cases where the vowel sound is that of "they", "their", "heifer", "conscience", "science", "deity", etc. The main exceptions are from Scots (weird, Keith, etc.) or from Greek, especially scientific Greek (protein, caffeine, etc.) Words such as "fancied" and "mercies" didn't use to be exceptions in English "Received Pronunciation", since the last vowel in them was the "short i" of "Sid", but now a great many educated English people pronounce them with "ee". No matter what rule you use, there are lots of words you have to learn. Jerry Friedman, in keeping with the rule. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From Gaertk at aol.com Mon Feb 23 14:45:18 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 17:45:18 -0500 Subject: zelazny Message-ID: <53051341.74290297.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/23/2004 1:00:32 AM Eastern Standard Time, Tucker writes: > Is there somewhere an online list of stories that Brust has > written? Off the top of my head, all I can come up with are > the five from the Liaveks and the one in _Sandman: Book of > Dreams_, though I think there was one in the Zelazny > tribute _Lord of the Fantastic_ as well. Here's a list of the 11 I've found plus reviews of the non-Liavek ones: http://google.com/groups?selm=3CA8A7A3.450F2EA9%40worldnet.att.net (recombine that if neccessary) Note that "Csucskari" in the Year's Best anthology is just the Hungarian folktale included in _The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars_. --KG From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Feb 23 14:55:40 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:55:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: zelazny In-Reply-To: <53051341.74290297.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <53051341.74290297.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/23/2004 1:00:32 AM Eastern Standard Time, Tucker writes: > > > Is there somewhere an online list of stories that Brust has > > written? Off the top of my head, all I can come up with are > > the five from the Liaveks and the one in _Sandman: Book of > > Dreams_, though I think there was one in the Zelazny > > tribute _Lord of the Fantastic_ as well. > > Here's a list of the 11 I've found plus reviews of the > non-Liavek ones: > > http://google.com/groups?selm=3CA8A7A3.450F2EA9%40worldnet.att.net Thanks for the capsules. Why isn't this info on the Dragaera page? From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Feb 23 14:52:53 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:52:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: <20040223223026.93173.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040223223026.93173.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: So the Demon hires Vlad in part because Mellar may have fled to the East and V has contacts there. I was just wondering, if M wanted to flee there, how long would it take him? It's not entirely clear to me how far the Orb's influence extends - though from _BP_ probably well into the East. Anyway, if M can't teleport directly, lacking for example the coordinates, he'd presumably have to travel to the mountains and cross a pass, which would make him a good target. Most likely he would instead go to Greenaere, perhaps by being teleported to a ship near the edge of the Orb's influence. Anyway, it seems to me that the Organization has too short a deadline to go looking for M out East. They should probably consider faking a corpse and getting a loan from the Empire. Actually, they're heavily invested in certain banks, as we learn in _Orca_ - why do they have such a glut of cash in _Jhereg_? From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Feb 23 15:11:51 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 15:11:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: basic question about SKZB's approach to form In-Reply-To: <53051341.74290297.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <53051341.74290297.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: So it seems to me that my other favorite SF/F novelists (Wolfe, John M Ford, Willis, Swanwick, Beagle, Tolkien, Zelazny) have significant short story oeuvres. I thought John Crowley (H. Bloom: "only Philip Roth consistently writes on Crowley's level") was an exception, perhaps because _Novelties_ left no impression on me, but he's coming out with his third collection of shorter works this year (and Ford and Wolfe have collections on the way soon). So why is it that SKZB has so few short works? From lister at insaneninjahero.com Mon Feb 23 15:24:56 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 15:24:56 -0800 Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: References: <20040223223026.93173.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <403A8BC8.3040307@insaneninjahero.com> Philip Hart wrote: > So the Demon hires Vlad in part because Mellar may have fled to the East > and V has contacts there. I was just wondering, if M wanted to flee > there, how long would it take him? It's not entirely clear to me how far > the Orb's influence extends - though from _BP_ probably well into the > East. Anyway, if M can't teleport directly, lacking for example the > coordinates, he'd presumably have to travel to the mountains and cross a > pass, which would make him a good target. Most likely he would instead > go to Greenaere, perhaps by being teleported to a ship near the edge of > the Orb's influence. > > Anyway, it seems to me that the Organization has too short a deadline to > go looking for M out East. They should probably consider faking a corpse > and getting a loan from the Empire. Actually, they're heavily invested > in certain banks, as we learn in _Orca_ - why do they have such a glut of > cash in _Jhereg_? > > > Putting aside the cash issues, it occurs to me that "two people can keep a secret if one of them has been done Morganti." That is, faking a corpse would only be a temporary measure, because people involved in the faking would talk, and might further smack of desperation once the story started to get around. Derrill From Talpianna at aol.com Mon Feb 23 15:21:41 2004 From: Talpianna at aol.com (Talpianna at aol.com) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:21:41 EST Subject: I before E Message-ID: <79.232b6520.2d6be505@aol.com> The weird foreigner seizes neither leisure nor work at its height. tal From bio_phy at hotmail.com Mon Feb 23 15:36:12 2004 From: bio_phy at hotmail.com (Johne Cook) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 17:36:12 -0600 Subject: basic question about SKZB's approach to form Message-ID: >From: Philip Hart >...So why is it that SKZB has so few short works? A number of impressions jump to mind: 1) if you're established, it's a little easier to make an actual living at writing for many writers with the longer forms (not everybody can toss out a "Rose for Ecclesiastes" off the top of their hat. Orson Scott Card writes novels instead of shorts these days for just that reason 2) writing shorter fiction is *hard* 3) From what I can tell Steve(n) is comfortable with the ability to sketch out intricate and involved plotlines, and that's something that lends itself better to book-length works 4) Finally, he seems to have more fun with books than with short fiction. These are all guesses, mind you, but educated to some extent. Regards, johne (phy) cook wisconsin, usa _________________________________________________________________ Take off on a romantic weekend or a family adventure to these great U.S. locations. http://special.msn.com/local/hotdestinations.armx From bonham15 at cox.net Mon Feb 23 15:30:38 2004 From: bonham15 at cox.net (bonham15) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 17:30:38 -0600 Subject: basic question about SKZB's approach to form References: <53051341.74290297.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <000401c3fa65$0b640110$53836044@user79dn2jmjai> > So it seems to me that my other favorite SF/F novelists (Wolfe, John M > Ford, Willis, Swanwick, Beagle, Tolkien, Zelazny) have significant short > story oeuvres. I thought John Crowley (H. Bloom: "only Philip Roth > consistently writes on Crowley's level") was an exception, perhaps because > _Novelties_ left no impression on me, but he's coming out with his third > collection of shorter works this year (and Ford and Wolfe have collections > on the way soon). So why is it that SKZB has so few short works? not sure, i know other authors (george rr martin, for example) started doing only short stories, and some so short they didn't even qualify as that. martin was asked why his little novellas graduated to the point where his *first* book in the fire and ice series was longer than the entire lord of the rings trilogy, and he said (very close to a quote, can't remember exact), i don't know, they just seemed to write themselves that way. imho (very very very humble, extremely humble-- go with your strengths, mom said), mr. brust seems to have such fun developing 'character' in his characters, and enjoys telling a story SO much, that doing shorts just doesn't float his boat. he needs a bigger tale to tell to get what he feels the story is. of course, i'm most likely wrong, but i'll be wrong in a pararectal way! andy From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Mon Feb 23 15:42:09 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 15:42:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: basic question about SKZB's approach to form Message-ID: <200402232342.i1NNg9g11244@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> > So it seems to me that my other favorite SF/F novelists (Wolfe, John M > Ford, Willis, Swanwick, Beagle, Tolkien, Zelazny) have significant short > story oeuvres. I thought John Crowley (H. Bloom: "only Philip Roth > consistently writes on Crowley's level") was an exception, perhaps because > _Novelties_ left no impression on me, but he's coming out with his third > collection of shorter works this year (and Ford and Wolfe have collections > on the way soon). So why is it that SKZB has so few short works? SKZB has stated (though hang me if I can recall where, exactly) that he prefers writing novels to short stories because he has more space to develop characters, plot, little bits he likes tossing in to fluster readers (okay, that last bit's my own addition:). He writes a mean short story, but damn fine books. Just have to wait for him to finish them....:) Chris (Waiting by the bookstore's phone #....) "He is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins." - Frederick Douglass From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Mon Feb 23 15:52:04 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 15:52:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040223235204.50722.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > So the Demon hires Vlad in part because Mellar may have fled to the East > and V has contacts there. I was just wondering, if M wanted to flee > there, how long would it take him? It's not entirely clear to me how > far > the Orb's influence extends - though from _BP_ probably well into the > East. In that case it's quite possible that Mellar could have gone there and that Vlad could find him. Anyway, I assume the worry that he might have gone to the East is just a way to set up the plot. > Anyway, if M can't teleport directly, lacking for example the > coordinates, he'd presumably have to travel to the mountains and cross a > pass, which would make him a good target. If anyone knows what pass he's crossing. > Most likely he would instead > go to Greenaere, perhaps by being teleported to a ship near the edge of > the Orb's influence. An interesting thought. I imagine it would involve a friend on board, which is quite possible. Apparently not everyone knows about Greenaere, though. > Anyway, it seems to me that the Organization has too short a deadline to > go looking for M out East. Given the situation, they have to do whatever it takes. > They should probably consider faking a corpse > and getting a loan from the Empire. It's not even clear that they need the loan. > Actually, they're heavily invested > in certain banks, as we learn in _Orca_ - why do they have such a glut > of cash in _Jhereg_? Another interesting question. I've never quite known what "lighten the Jhereg treasury" means. Other houses have treasuries too. Are these really stocks of cash in private vaults? Or did Mellar make unauthorized withdrawals from bank accounts? Does it matter? Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From davids at kithrup.com Mon Feb 23 16:43:21 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 16:43:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: basic question about SKZB's approach to form In-Reply-To: <000401c3fa65$0b640110$53836044@user79dn2jmjai> Message-ID: Amusingly enough, I've been just recently reading "Adventures in the Dream Trade" (by one Ilen, a Magian). It includes a short bit about Roger Zelazny, and mentions a point where he, Roger & Steve Brust are talking about short story structure. He quotes Zelazny as saying "Many of my better short stories are just the last chapters of novels I did not write." Which is a good quote on the subject, if nothing else. From marewhalen at yahoo.com Mon Feb 23 17:56:46 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 17:56:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Zerika in Paths Message-ID: <20040224015646.83792.qmail@web14002.mail.yahoo.com> In the introduction to _The Lord of Castle Black_ Paarfi describes how his description of Zerika's journey at the end of the last book was "an encapsulation of and triumph over the 17 Great Houses" but doesn't specify any more. I think I can see which incidents correspond to the Houses. Phoenix: Z enters the Paths (passes tree without leaves). Dragon: Z plunges through the brush (she charges straight in and succeeds, but with difficulty). Lyorn: Z must go through many tricky parts almost too fast (succeeds using memorization, precision and training. Tiassa: Z must cross a pool without touching water or going around (she succeeds through an original idea of going up a vine and across a branch). Hawk: There are distractions, but Z looks ahead and doesn't stray from the path. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Mon Feb 23 18:03:59 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:03:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: Zerika in Paths Message-ID: <20040224020359.85891.qmail@web14001.mail.yahoo.com> Dzur: Z is attacked by weapons but courageously doesn't flee and they don't harm her. Issola: There is an earthquake and a crevice opens up in front of her (surprise) and she immediately leaps. Tsalmoth: Z forgets to turn before the arch but then remembers. Vallista: Z crosses boulder by contruction, then it splits behind her. Jhereg: Z crosses the river of corpses by controlling her disgust. Iorich: This is fairly metaphorical; Z must walk a narrow path and hold the walls to her sides from fall- ing down on her. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Mon Feb 23 18:14:34 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:14:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Zerika in Paths Message-ID: <20040224021434.65053.qmail@web14003.mail.yahoo.com> Chreotha: Z is caught going in a circle (she passes by closing her eyes and continuing). Yendi: Z must follow the animal trail that leads away >from a bush and there are two of them. She chooses one and follows it. Orca: Z passes through a bush; the nest in it falls and the egg breaks. She thinks that it's sad, but it was necessary. Teckla: Z passes through an impossible garden of various plants. She doesn't know anything about agriculture and simply goes through it. Jhegaala: Z passes through a shifting landscape which disorients her. She follows her instructions and it soon stops. Athyra: Z's foot is caught in a plant. She thinks about what message there might be in this (in very philosophical ways) then just cuts it. Phoenix again: Z enters the Halls of Judgement through an arch topped by a phoenix. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From mam at theworld.com Mon Feb 23 18:25:07 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 21:25:07 -0500 Subject: Zerika in Paths In-Reply-To: <20040224015646.83792.qmail@web14002.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, mary whalen wrote: # In the introduction to _The Lord of Castle Black_ Paarfi describes #how his description of Zerika's journey at the end of the last book #was "an encapsulation of and triumph over the 17 Great Houses" but #doesn't specify any more. # # I think I can see which incidents correspond to the #Houses. [followed by 18 incidents, completing and closing the Cycle] Without going to the books to look, that sure looks good. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From pulmon at comcast.net Mon Feb 23 19:10:56 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 22:10:56 -0500 Subject: Where was Dolivar? In-Reply-To: <20040223223026.93173.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040223223026.93173.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <106110AE-6677-11D8-ADC0-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 23, 2004, at 5:30 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote: > --- Bryan Newell wrote: >> Where was Dolivar's soul during the 200 thousand years between his >> death >> and >> eventual reincarnation as Vlad? >> >> I'd bet money he was nowhere near Kieron, which means he wasn't >> hanging >> out >> in the Paths of the Dead, and I imagine it was too risky to be >> reincarnated >> as a Dragaeran (since, upon his death, he might get sent over the >> Falls). >> >> I'm betting he spent all that time in the East... If the average >> lifespan is >> 60 years, that's over 3,000 Easterner lifespans... > > An interesting point, but do we have any reason to think that > reincarnation is up to the character? I had the impression that > it was up to the Lords of Judgement. Dolivar may have had to > take his chances. > > Jerry Friedman > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. > http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools > > Not to mention the inconstant nature of time in the Paths. The soul of Dolivar might have done nothing from his death until Vlad's birth and it might haves seemed like only a second. From howard at brazee.net Mon Feb 23 19:55:04 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 20:55:04 -0700 Subject: Where was Dolivar? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3fa89$fc842c90$3ecffea9@Dad133> Remember there are a lot of peasants and other nobodies who are Dragaerans. -----Original Message----- From: Bryan Newell [mailto:bryann at bryann.net] Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 7:26 PM To: Dragaera Mailing List Subject: Where was Dolivar? Where was Dolivar's soul during the 200 thousand years between his death and eventual reincarnation as Vlad? I'd bet money he was nowhere near Kieron, which means he wasn't hanging out in the Paths of the Dead, and I imagine it was too risky to be reincarnated as a Dragaeran (since, upon his death, he might get sent over the Falls). I'm betting he spent all that time in the East... If the average lifespan is 60 years, that's over 3,000 Easterner lifespans... Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) She had a smile for me to wear. From vtaltos at earthlink.net Mon Feb 23 20:04:59 2004 From: vtaltos at earthlink.net (P.R.Williams) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 23:04:59 -0500 Subject: Where was Dolivar? In-Reply-To: <000001c3fa89$fc842c90$3ecffea9@Dad133> Message-ID: A reincarnation of Dolivar is unlikely to be content with being a "nobody." Heck, that soul took an EASTERNER, became a Boss, turned the Jhereg on its ear, then betrayed the "establishment" wreaking MORE havoc, managed to evade the hordes of assassins and THEN acquired a Great Weapon. I would imagine that in a Dragaeran, he'd be doing similar things. Hmm .. who started the last Jhereg/Dragon war? -----Original Message----- From: Howard Brazee [mailto:howard at brazee.net] Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 10:55 PM To: dragaera at dragaera.info Subject: RE: Where was Dolivar? Remember there are a lot of peasants and other nobodies who are Dragaerans. -----Original Message----- From: Bryan Newell [mailto:bryann at bryann.net] Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 7:26 PM To: Dragaera Mailing List Subject: Where was Dolivar? Where was Dolivar's soul during the 200 thousand years between his death and eventual reincarnation as Vlad? I'd bet money he was nowhere near Kieron, which means he wasn't hanging out in the Paths of the Dead, and I imagine it was too risky to be reincarnated as a Dragaeran (since, upon his death, he might get sent over the Falls). I'm betting he spent all that time in the East... If the average lifespan is 60 years, that's over 3,000 Easterner lifespans... Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) She had a smile for me to wear. From dd-b at dd-b.net Mon Feb 23 20:27:11 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 22:27:11 -0600 Subject: zelazny In-Reply-To: (Philip Hart's message of "Mon, 23 Feb 2004 14:55:40 -0800 (PST)") References: <53051341.74290297.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: Philip Hart writes: > Why isn't this [bibliographic] info on the Dragaera page? A bibliography section is on the to-do list. I've been grabbing the recent posts to help me with that, but the real issue is how much detail to store in the records, and how to represent multiple publications in anthologies. Gotta get the structure right before we start implementing. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From marewhalen at yahoo.com Mon Feb 23 20:43:44 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 20:43:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: Devera as the dragon Message-ID: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> I don't agree that the dragon seen at the end of _Issola_ was Devera in another form. I think the similarity to Aliera was meant to indicate that Kieron had left the Paths in some way (perhaps in a new temporary body or merely possessing a totem of his house). This also helps explain why Sethra said that Aliera shoud know him since she had met Kieron and been familiar with him once and has apparently never met Devera yet. If this isn't meant to be Kieron then I don't think we're meant to know who it is yet. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From fides at kludgeco.com Tue Feb 24 03:32:41 2004 From: fides at kludgeco.com (Fides) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:32:41 +0000 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: <16442.17944.116938.714159@gw.dd-b.net> References: <16442.17944.116938.714159@gw.dd-b.net> Message-ID: <403B3659.7030001@kludgeco.com> David Dyer-Bennet wrote: >Bryan Newell writes on 22 February 2004 at 23:33:55 -0600 > > > I hadn't realized that was a fatal error... It certainly isn't fatal in any > > of the browsers I've used. Is that only required so the validator knows HOW > > to validate your html? Or are browsers also supposed to reject your page if > > it doesn't have a DOCTYPE declared? > > > > Anyone know? > >I've never had a browser complain about lack of DOCTYPE, or character >encoding. The validator is absolutely insistent on both, however. I >don't know if it helps them validate, or if it's just a requirement in >the spec that no browser enforces, however. > > There is fatal and there is *right*. The spec says that the document should have a doc type. Some browsers do react differently depending on whether there is a doctype. For example whether the page should be rendered correctly or in 'quirky' mode (ie not confirming to standards) [http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/res_doctype.htm]. The gecko browsers actually go so far as to render the page differently depending on which doctype you declare [http://mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/quirks/doctypes.html]. So in answer. It is a requirement in the spec. Browsers won't complain just as they don't complain when you leave end tags off tables or paragraphs - they are created to deal with badly written code. However it does have an effect on how modern browsers render the page and it may become even more important in the future when the next generations of browsers start doing really interesting stuff. :-) Fides From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 24 03:51:49 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 06:51:49 -0500 Subject: Devera as the dragon In-Reply-To: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Feb 23, 2004, at 11:43 PM, mary whalen wrote: > > I don't agree that the dragon seen at the end of > _Issola_ was Devera in another form. I think the > similarity to Aliera was meant to indicate that Kieron > had left the Paths in some way (perhaps in a new > temporary body or merely possessing a totem of his > house). This also helps explain why Sethra said that > Aliera shoud know him since she had met Kieron and > been familiar with him once and has apparently never > met Devera yet. > > If this isn't meant to be Kieron then I don't think > we're meant to know who it is yet. > > Great point! After all, we KNOW that Kieron told Aliera that he would come after her if she relinquished his sword, she acknowledged that when she traded it for Pathfinder, and what a great series of future plots THIS will make, leading to a family reunion at the end of the Empire when Kelly wins and a communist republic takes over! (the last part is improbable, but dammit! the commies have to win SOMEWHERE!) From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Tue Feb 24 04:48:54 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 07:48:54 -0500 Subject: Where was Dolivar? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 23, 2004, at 11:04 PM, P.R.Williams wrote: > A reincarnation of Dolivar is unlikely to be content with being a > "nobody." > Heck, that soul took an EASTERNER, became a Boss, turned the Jhereg on > its > ear, then betrayed the "establishment" wreaking MORE havoc, managed to > evade > the hordes of assassins and THEN acquired a Great Weapon. You get into a whole bunch of questions about Dragaeran reincarnation, though. How much of a choice rests with the reincarnating soul? Could it be that the Dolivar soul has tried several (dozen? hundred?) times to make its way back to power in the world, only to be reincarnated as leper, or a destitute farmer, or a third clerk in the Palace larder. Perhaps he "improved" with time, becoming slightly more or less influential with each life (there are shades of Hindu-style reincarnation in this theory). Until he hits upon/becomes Vlad. > I would imagine that in a Dragaeran, he'd be doing similar things. > Hmm .. > who started the last Jhereg/Dragon war? Just so. > Ban Zone Grime (Why Noam Izenberg showers after leaving the Zone) From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 06:58:16 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 06:58:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: Geography In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040224145816.70840.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Newell wrote: > I have begun work on my new website devoted to > mapping the world of > Dragaera. Here is my current list of "Global" observations: I think you have most of these, but here is my current list. Jhereg and Yendi obs. (pages): (5,26) Jungles are >= 100 miles west of Adrilankha (AD) (26) Castle Black > 100 mi of AD (80) Adron's lesser Sea of Chaos "up North" from AD (121) City of Dragaera = Adron's lesser sea (duh) (161) Jungles west of AD >= 300 mi from Castle Black (163) Mellar and Vlad end up in same jungle (not useful?) Yendi: (202) City of AD on southern coast of empire (287) Castle black is 175 mi NE of AD -"tip" (of an ear?) of Dzur mnt seen to east (pg?) There are castles N of Adron's sea (noise/fire came from south in that Teckla's description to Vlad of how he became lord of the castle.) Have fun! Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Feb 23 18:27:28 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:27:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: <20040223235204.50722.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040223235204.50722.qmail@web14422.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Jerry Friedman wrote: > --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > Anyway, if M can't teleport directly, lacking for example the > > coordinates, he'd presumably have to travel to the mountains and cross a > > pass, which would make him a good target. > > If anyone knows what pass he's crossing. Sethra can perform an elementary divination, thank you - or words to that effect. The point isn't worth belaboring, but I imagine the passes could be easily covered by the Left Hand - it would involve a static 2-d search instead of a dynamic 3-d search. I imagine the Jhereg have a protocol in place for such occurrences. OT, why are there two "r"s in "occurrence" and one in "appearance"? From books at bofh.com Tue Feb 24 07:43:16 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 08:43:16 -0700 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <200402210720.i1L7KeN08560@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> References: <200402210720.i1L7KeN08560@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <20040224154316.GA15398@bofh.com> On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 11:20:40PM -0800, David Goldfarb wrote: > David Goldfarb |"An athiest is a person who wierdly refuses > goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |to recieve the gift of beleif in a diety." ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ > goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dave Langford, on rec.arts.sf.fandom Ah....the irony :) -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From casey at the-bat.net Tue Feb 24 07:58:50 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 10:58:50 -0500 Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Philip Hart wrote: > OT, why are there two "r"s in "occurrence" and one in "appearance"? The way I learned the consonant doubling rule was that if a word has one or two syllables and the final syllable has a short, simple vowel, then you double the consonant when adding suffixes that start with another short vowel like -ed, -ing, and -ence. Thus occur gets its r doubled, but appear doesn't. I forget whether there is also a limit on which consonants qualify. Certainly I can think of examples for d, n, r, and t. Paging Dr. Whom. Paging Dr. Whom. Casey From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 08:14:22 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 08:14:22 -0800 (PST) Subject: Zerika in Paths In-Reply-To: <20040224015646.83792.qmail@web14002.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040224161422.67994.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> --- mary whalen wrote: > > In the introduction to _The Lord of Castle Black_ > Paarfi describes how his description of Zerika's > journey > at the end of the last book was "an encapsulation of > and triumph over the 17 Great Houses" but doesn't > specify any more. > > I think I can see which incidents correspond to the > Houses. > > Phoenix: Z enters the Paths (passes tree without > leaves). ... S P O I L E R F O R P o t D! I'm impressed by this list, but I wonder whether the first Phoenix incident was jumping off the cliff--"dying" to be reborn. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From books at bofh.com Tue Feb 24 08:13:10 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 09:13:10 -0700 Subject: Devera as the dragon In-Reply-To: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040224161310.GB15398@bofh.com> On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 08:43:44PM -0800, mary whalen wrote: > > I don't agree that the dragon seen at the end of > _Issola_ was Devera in another form. I think the [*snip*] Regrettably, Steven doesn't agree with you. But what does he know? -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From casey at the-bat.net Tue Feb 24 08:43:16 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:43:16 -0500 Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Philip Hart wrote: > OT, why are there two "r"s in "occurrence" and one in "appearance"? OK, I googled a bit and found some references to a CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) rule. If the final syllable is CVC and stressed, the consonant is doubled when adding such suffixes, with the exception that you don't double w, x, or y. Other sites give vowel consonant, which allows up=>upper, in=>inner, if=>iffy, etc. There doesn't seem to be anything I can find about short vowel sounds. That could be something I added that comes along for the ride. Casey From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 24 08:57:00 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:57:00 -0500 Subject: Devera as the dragon In-Reply-To: <20040224161310.GB15398@bofh.com> References: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> <20040224161310.GB15398@bofh.com> Message-ID: <76489AB1-66EA-11D8-ADC0-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 24, 2004, at 11:13 AM, Jot Powers wrote: > On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 08:43:44PM -0800, mary whalen wrote: >> >> I don't agree that the dragon seen at the end of >> _Issola_ was Devera in another form. I think the > > [*snip*] > > Regrettably, Steven doesn't agree with you. > > But what does he know? > > -Jot > -- > Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ > "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" > -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan > > "Monty wins the bannana" is NOT an unequivocal assertion of congruency between the Dragon and Devera. Frankly, I like Kieron as the Dragon MUCH better than I like Devera as the Dragon. And, knowing Steve's prediliction for misdirection, I would not be surprised to learn the "Monty wins the bannana" was not intended to confirm Monty's theory. Ken Gorelick From mneme at io.com Tue Feb 24 10:33:27 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 12:33:27 -0600 Subject: When is a banana merely a banana? In-Reply-To: <76489AB1-66EA-11D8-ADC0-0003938F1608@comcast.net> References: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> <20040224161310.GB15398@bofh.com> <76489AB1-66EA-11D8-ADC0-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <16443.39159.149184.920349@fnord.io.com> Kenneth Gorelick writes: >"Monty wins the bannana" is NOT an unequivocal assertion of congruency >between the Dragon and Devera. Frankly, I like Kieron as the Dragon >MUCH better than I like Devera as the Dragon. And, knowing Steve's >prediliction for misdirection, I would not be surprised to learn the >"Monty wins the bannana" was not intended to confirm Monty's theory. Who are we to destroy your fragile illusions? ============================ Largely un-relatedly, I'll note that as someone who's participated or observed a number of subject groups with the author, it seems as if they fall into a number of very different styles. The first, not even all that worthy of mention, is the "flack" style. In this, the author is only present as a publicity move, and generally doesn't "interact" with the fans on any real level. Not sure I've seen this, but it feels as if it's around enough to be mentioned. Somewhat more interactive is the "star" mentality. In this, the author (or whatever; the content producer) views his or her interaction with the fans as unreal; basically, another performance. Near as I can tell, the primary signifier of this is that the "star" will feel free to lie when it suits them and they think it improves the performance -- after all, it's all part of the show; nothing is real, right? Joss Whedon's online presence seems to smack of this idea, from what I've seen of it. The next (not that these can really be ranked, exactly, though I'm doing it anyway; it's certainly not a straight progression) is the "performer" mentality. In this, the creator is still a performer as per the "star" above...but while they are generally on stage, and will often attempt to misdirect and play to the audience, they also view the forum as a true reality of its own; as such, will usually avoid outright lies, instead responding with hints and misinterpretable statements. In comparison with Whedon, JMS ( J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5) had(has?) an online presence falling into this category. The last (though it can probably be subdivided on its own) is "participant". On this level, the creator feels part of, rather than "above" the community; participating in discussion on a genuine level, and often actually giving straight dope or refusing to answer questions rather than making every answer a "performance". To my mind, Brust clearly falls into this category (as, of course, do Jo Walton, PDDB, Joel Rosenberg[jerk that he sometimes is], Daniel Keys Moran, and numerous others). Thoughts? -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From matthew at infodancer.org Tue Feb 24 10:57:05 2004 From: matthew at infodancer.org (Matthew Hunter) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 12:57:05 -0600 Subject: When is a banana merely a banana? In-Reply-To: <16443.39159.149184.920349@fnord.io.com> References: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> <20040224161310.GB15398@bofh.com> <76489AB1-66EA-11D8-ADC0-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <16443.39159.149184.920349@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <20040224185705.GJ13568@infodancer.org> On Tue, Feb 24, 2004 at 12:33:27PM -0600, Joshua Kronengold wrote: > The last (though it can probably be subdivided on its own) is > "participant". On this level, the creator feels part of, rather than > "above" the community; participating in discussion on a genuine level, > and often actually giving straight dope or refusing to answer > questions rather than making every answer a "performance". To my > mind, Brust clearly falls into this category (as, of course, do Jo > Walton, PDDB, Joel Rosenberg[jerk that he sometimes is], Daniel Keys > Moran, and numerous others). > > Thoughts? You missed one: "antagonist". This is perhaps best characterized by the late middle of Jordan's Wheel of Time series, by which times fans had build up huge logical edificates around the most minor details in the novels that answering even an innocent-seeming question could inadvertantly spoil the resolution or two or three mysteries several books ahead of schedule. The author responded to this by refusing to answer anything that even remotely touched on something he preferred to conceal; by changing his plans in midstream (often for the worse) just so the derived answer would be incorrect; or giving "hints" that only further muddied the issue. Clearly, the author had backed himself into perceiving the (more interested, anyway) fans as his enemy, from whom he had to conceal his intent, and perhaps even "defeat". -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp From marewhalen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 11:08:44 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:08:44 -0800 (PST) Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040224190844.52179.qmail@web14001.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > OT, why are there two "r"s in "occurrence" and one > in "appearance"? The word "occur" come from Latin "occurrere" and "occurrence" from "occurrentia" with double r's in both. English just doesn't end words in double r's (or any other double letters, usually). __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From mneme at io.com Tue Feb 24 11:05:41 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 13:05:41 -0600 Subject: When is a banana merely a banana? In-Reply-To: <20040224185705.GJ13568@infodancer.org> References: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> <20040224161310.GB15398@bofh.com> <76489AB1-66EA-11D8-ADC0-0003938F1608@comcast.net> <16443.39159.149184.920349@fnord.io.com> <20040224185705.GJ13568@infodancer.org> Message-ID: <16443.41093.676933.649353@fnord.io.com> Matthew Hunter writes: >You missed one: "antagonist". Good point -- in some ways, this has overlap with "star", but you're quite right that there's a distinction between viewing the populace as "the rabble" and viewing them as "the enemy." -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From marewhalen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 11:17:03 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:17:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: Zerika in Paths In-Reply-To: <20040224161422.67994.qmail@web14423.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040224191703.13496.qmail@web14005.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jerry Friedman wrote: > > S > P > O > I > L > E > R > > F > O > R > > P > o > t > D! > > > I'm impressed by this list, but I wonder whether the > first Phoenix > incident was jumping off the cliff--"dying" to be > reborn. It certainly is symbolic, but the symbols I'm concerned with only happen within the Paths of the Dead where the Lords of Judgement can apparently test newcomers however they want. Presumably the same or similar tests would be given to any Phoenix (and modified tests for the other Houses) no matter how they arrived. Of course, almost all Phoenixes who entered the Paths were dead first. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From xmasberry at mail.com Tue Feb 24 11:14:31 2004 From: xmasberry at mail.com (h christmas) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 12:14:31 -0700 Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: <79.232b6520.2d6be505@aol.com> Message-ID: On 2/23/04 4:21 PM, "Talpianna at aol.com" wrote: > The weird foreigner seizes neither leisure nor work at its height. > > tal > My favorite on this is from Brian Regan: "I before e except after c Or when sounding like 'a', As in neighbor and weigh. And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, And you'll always be wrong no matter what you say!" From marewhalen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 11:28:05 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:28:05 -0800 (PST) Subject: Devera as the dragon In-Reply-To: <76489AB1-66EA-11D8-ADC0-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <20040224192805.82760.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> SPOILERS FOR ISSOLA --- Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > > On Feb 24, 2004, at 11:13 AM, Jot Powers wrote: > > > On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 08:43:44PM -0800, mary > whalen wrote: > >> > >> I don't agree that the dragon seen at the end > of > >> _Issola_ was Devera in another form. I think the > > > > [*snip*] > > > > Regrettably, Steven doesn't agree with you. > > > > But what does he know? > > > > > "Monty wins the bannana" is NOT an unequivocal > assertion of congruency > knowing Steve's > prediliction for misdirection, I would not be > surprised to learn the > "Monty wins the bannana" was not intended to confirm > Monty's theory. > Looking back on messages from this subject from the past, I agree that the banana message doesn't necessarily confirm the claim for Devera's claim to dragonhood (little d). If he had said "won the cigar" it would not have the same room for interpretation. However, the substitution may simply mean that this idea is just a bunch of monkey business. It seems unlikely to me to be Devera because she already appeared once before in _Issola_, she acts bloodthirsty (more like Kieron than a nice young girl) and Sethra says Aliera should know the dragon's identity. In some of the discussion on this in the past, it seems to me that there was some confusion over the use of "she" by Sethra when discussing the dragon with Aliera. I think that the "she" referred to is the Necromancer, who is being discussed in psychic communication right after Sethra was talking about the dragon. If so, the dragon is just as likely to be male as female. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 11:34:28 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:34:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Habil's plan Message-ID: <20040224193428.84036.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> SPOILERS FOR _THE LORD OF CASTLE BLACK_ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From lazarus33pjf at cox.net Tue Feb 24 11:31:41 2004 From: lazarus33pjf at cox.net (lazarus) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:31:41 -0800 Subject: Zerika in Paths In-Reply-To: <20040224015646.83792.qmail@web14002.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040224015646.83792.qmail@web14002.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 17:56:46 -0800 (PST), you wrote: > > In the introduction to _The Lord of Castle Black_ >Paarfi describes how his description of Zerika's >journey >at the end of the last book was "an encapsulation of >and triumph over the 17 Great Houses" but doesn't >specify any more. > > I think I can see which incidents correspond to the >Houses. > Snip most excellent listing. Simply to say, Bravo! And well done. I never thought to pull that out of there. From marewhalen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 11:39:42 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:39:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: Habil's plan Message-ID: <20040224193942.75088.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> SPOILERS FOR _THE LORD OF CASTLE BLACK_ At the end of the book, Verra is questioning Moranthe about Skinter and Habil. Moranthe says that they wanted her to manifest and help them. Verra wonders why they picked her. I think that it is her worshippers in the East they want to influence. They planned to have her appear to her followers and send them to attack the Empire to disrupt Zerika's new reign. Since the goddess they first sought is apparently unavailable, they try again with Tri'nagore. I believe that at in the next book the people who attacked Blackchapel will follow Tri'nagore's command to attack and Morrolan will face them (and gain his revenge, unless Paarfi is more mistaken than his critics believe). __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Tue Feb 24 11:51:43 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 11:51:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: Habil's plan In-Reply-To: <20040224193428.84036.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040224193428.84036.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, mary whalen wrote: > SPOILERS FOR _THE LORD OF CASTLE BLACK_ > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. > http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools Do I need a blacklight? From Gaertk at aol.com Tue Feb 24 12:11:26 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:11:26 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <5C4E8F99.5F4A040F.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/24/2004 10:43:16 AM Eastern Standard Time, Jot Powers writes: > On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 11:20:40PM -0800, David Goldfarb > wrote: >> goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu ?|to recieve the gift of beleif in a diety." > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ^^^^^^^ ? ? ? ? ? ? ^^^^^^ > Ah....the irony ?:) More than you intended (hint: always use fixed-width fonts when adding an underline). --KG From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 24 12:13:01 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:13:01 -0500 Subject: Habil's plan In-Reply-To: <20040224193428.84036.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040224193428.84036.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Feb 24, 2004, at 2:34 PM, mary whalen wrote: > SPOILERS FOR _THE LORD OF CASTLE BLACK_ > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. > http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools > > Now that is just a dam' tease! From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 24 12:12:28 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:12:28 -0500 Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: <20040224190844.52179.qmail@web14001.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040224190844.52179.qmail@web14001.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Feb 24, 2004, at 2:08 PM, mary whalen wrote: > > --- Philip Hart wrote: >> >> >> OT, why are there two "r"s in "occurrence" and one >> in "appearance"? > > The word "occur" come from Latin "occurrere" and > "occurrence" from "occurrentia" with double r's in > both. English just doesn't end words in double r's > (or any other double letters, usually). > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. > http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools > > Dear Mary, You are off on a good start, but to ERR is human... Ken From Gaertk at aol.com Tue Feb 24 12:23:29 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:23:29 -0500 Subject: zelazny Message-ID: <27D5F284.14E8B755.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/23/2004 11:27:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, David Dyer-Bennet writes: > Philip Hart writes: > >> Why isn't this [bibliographic] info on the Dragaera page? > > A bibliography section is on the to-do list. ?I've been > grabbing the recent posts to help me with that, but the > real issue is how much detail to store in the records, and > how to represent multiple publications in anthologies. Is this an issue? From what I've seen, the only cases of multiple publication are novels or parts of novels. --KG From warlord at dragon.com Tue Feb 24 12:33:36 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:33:36 -0500 Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Kenneth Gorelick [mailto:pulmon at comcast.net] > Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 3:12 PM > On Feb 24, 2004, at 2:08 PM, mary whalen wrote: > > > > > --- Philip Hart wrote: > >> > >> > >> OT, why are there two "r"s in "occurrence" and one > >> in "appearance"? > > > > The word "occur" come from Latin "occurrere" and > > "occurrence" from "occurrentia" with double r's in > > both. English just doesn't end words in double r's > > (or any other double letters, usually). > > > > > > __________________________________ > > Do you Yahoo!? > > Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. > > http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools > > > > > Dear Mary, > > You are off on a good start, but to ERR is human... > > Ken > > I will not always disagree less. W It compiles! Let's ship it! - overheard at Microsoft From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Tue Feb 24 12:56:24 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 12:56:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Message-ID: <200402242056.i1OKuOZ13258@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> >From dragaera-return-12336-goldfarb=ocf.berkeley.edu at dragaera.info Tue Feb 24 07:50:36 2004 Mailing-List: contact dragaera-help at dragaera.info; run by ezmlm X-No-Archive: yes X-Archive-Number: 12336 List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-ID: Dragera discussion from dragaera.info Delivered-To: mailing list dragaera at dragaera.info Received-SPF: pass (ns2: local policy designates 209.104.16.38 as permitted sender) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 08:43:16 -0700 From: Jot Powers To: dragaera at dragaera.info Subject: Re: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i X-SMTPD: qpsmtpd/0.26, http://develooper.com/code/qpsmtpd/ X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on millennium.OCF.Berkeley.EDU X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-4.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=2.63 >On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 11:20:40PM -0800, David Goldfarb wrote: >> David Goldfarb |"An athiest is a person who wierdly refuses >> goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |to recieve the gift of beleif in a diety." > ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ > >> goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dave Langford, on rec.arts.sf.fandom > >Ah....the irony :) Are you laboring under the impression that that sig has any mistakes in it? If so then there's more irony than you think. Let's just say that your comment should have been more like: > David Goldfarb |"An athiest is a person who wierdly refuses > ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ >goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |to recieve the gift of beleif in a diety." > ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ >goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dave Langford, on rec.arts.sf.fandom You're the second person I've encountered who didn't understand that sig; I'm starting to wonder if it's too subtle for the net. -- David Goldfarb <*>|"Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | It wastes your time and annoys the pedant." goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Lois McMaster Bujold From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 24 13:17:23 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:17:23 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <200402242056.i1OKuOZ13258@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, David Goldfarb wrote: #> David Goldfarb |"An athiest is a person who wierdly refuses #> ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ #>goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |to recieve the gift of beleif in a diety." #> ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ #>goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dave Langford, on rec.arts.sf.fandom # #You're the second person I've encountered who didn't understand that sig; #I'm starting to wonder if it's too subtle for the net. Not for all the net. #-- # David Goldfarb <*>|"Never argue with a pedant over nomenclature. #goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | It wastes your time and annoys the pedant." #goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Lois McMaster Bujold One of my favorite quotes; almost a motto for -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 24 13:13:08 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:13:08 -0500 Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: #OT, why are there two "r"s in "occurrence" and one in "appearance"? Because the vowel before the /r/ sound in "occur" is a lax (~"short") vowel and spelled with a single letter, while the vowel before the /r/ in "appear" is a tense (~"long") vowel and is written with a digraph. Spoken English doesn't have double consonants except in compounds, like "bird-dog", so between vowels written English uses double consonants to show that the preceding vowel is lax: bidding biding better meter laddies ladies hopping hoping runner runic -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Feb 24 14:00:27 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 16:00:27 -0600 Subject: zelazny In-Reply-To: <27D5F284.14E8B755.00048EA6@aol.com> (Gaertk@aol.com's message of "Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:23:29 -0500") References: <27D5F284.14E8B755.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: Gaertk at aol.com writes: > In a message dated 2/23/2004 11:27:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, David Dyer-Bennet writes: > >> Philip Hart writes: >> >>> Why isn't this [bibliographic] info on the Dragaera page? >> >> A bibliography section is on the to-do list. ?I've been >> grabbing the recent posts to help me with that, but the >> real issue is how much detail to store in the records, and >> how to represent multiple publications in anthologies. > > Is this an issue? From what I've seen, the only cases of > multiple publication are novels or parts of novels. Doesn't mean it's not an issue. I'm sure I couldn't get Steven to commit to not making any future sales of stories, for example. And anyway, if we have to handle it for novels, then handling for shorts is already covered, and we already know we have to handle it for novels (both multiple individual editions, and joined editions like _The Book of Jhereg_). -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From jerry_friedman at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 14:18:26 2004 From: jerry_friedman at yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 14:18:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: Zerika in Paths In-Reply-To: <20040224191703.13496.qmail@web14005.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040224221826.81901.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> --- mary whalen wrote: > > --- Jerry Friedman wrote: > > > > S > > P > > O > > I > > L > > E > > R > > > > F > > O > > R > > > > P > > o > > t > > D! > > > > > > I'm impressed by this list, but I wonder whether the > > first Phoenix > > incident was jumping off the cliff--"dying" to be > > reborn. > > It certainly is symbolic, but the symbols I'm > concerned with only happen within the Paths of the > Dead where the Lords of Judgement can apparently test > newcomers however they want. Presumably the same or > similar tests would be given to any Phoenix (and > modified tests for the other Houses) no matter how > they arrived. I think I see what you're saying, but passing the currently leafless tree doesn't seem like much of a test, even a symbolic one. > Of course, almost all Phoenixes who entered the > Paths were dead first. Quite true, but we don't know that they pass 18 tests rather than 17. Indeed, your quotation (I haven't read LoCB, and I'm grateful that you've been careful not to spoil it) doesn't say that there's an initial Phoenix test at all. Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 24 14:21:23 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 17:21:23 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <200402242056.i1OKuOZ13258@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> References: <200402242056.i1OKuOZ13258@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: On Feb 24, 2004, at 3:56 PM, David Goldfarb wrote: >> On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 11:20:40PM -0800, David Goldfarb wrote: >>> David Goldfarb |"An athiest is a person who wierdly >>> refuses >>> goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |to recieve the gift of beleif in a >>> diety." >> ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ >> >>> goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dave Langford, on rec.arts.sf.fandom >> >> Ah....the irony :) > > Are you laboring under the impression that that sig has any mistakes > in it? > If so then there's more irony than you think. Let's just say that your > comment should have been more like: > >> David Goldfarb |"An athiest is a person who wierdly refuses >> ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ >> goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |to recieve the gift of beleif in a diety." >> ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ >> goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dave Langford, on rec.arts.sf.fandom > > You're the second person I've encountered who didn't understand that > sig; > I'm starting to wonder if it's too subtle for the net. > > -- > David Goldfarb <*>|"Never argue with a pedant over > nomenclature. > goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | It wastes your time and annoys the > pedant." > goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Lois McMaster Bujold > > This is ALL to subtle for me. I thought athiest meant the one with the most athy. From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 24 14:57:31 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 17:57:31 -0500 Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 24, 2004, at 4:13 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Philip Hart wrote: > > #OT, why are there two "r"s in "occurrence" and one in "appearance"? > > Because the vowel before the /r/ sound in "occur" is a lax (~"short") > vowel and spelled with a single letter, while the vowel before the /r/ > in "appear" is a tense (~"long") vowel and is written with a digraph. > Spoken English doesn't have double consonants except in compounds, like > "bird-dog", so between vowels written English uses double consonants to > show that the preceding vowel is lax: > > bidding biding > better meter > laddies ladies > hopping hoping > runner runic > > -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and > Philological Busybody > a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel > > Are you suggesting that a double-consonant is a laxative, or is that merely pararectal? From marewhalen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 15:32:04 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:32:04 -0800 (PST) Subject: various Message-ID: <20040224233204.2856.qmail@web14001.mail.yahoo.com> I have a few replies that may be slightly off topic so I'll combine them into this one message. First, I'd like to thank everyone who complimented me on my analysis of Zerika's journey. I also worded a sentence about doubled consonants badly and changed the scope of an adverb. I should have said that r (and most consonants) usually aren't doubled at the end of a word. I just meant that within a word a doubled consonant can't be taken as indicating the spelling of the word alone ("stirring" and "stepping" vs. "stir" and "step"). My first e-mail about Habil's plan was accidentally sent before I finished. I sent the complete one a few minutes later (I don't know if everyone saw it or read it). Finally, though I'm using Mary Whalen's e-mail account, my name is Sean Whalen. Some of you may have seen me on the Urth List for discussion of Gene Wolfe's books. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 15:43:30 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:43:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Zerika in Paths In-Reply-To: <20040224221826.81901.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040224234330.31064.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jerry Friedman wrote: > > --- mary whalen wrote: > > > > --- Jerry Friedman > wrote: > > > > > > S > > > P > > > O > > > I > > > L > > > E > > > R > > > > > > F > > > O > > > R > > > > > > P > > > o > > > t > > > D! > > > > > Of course, almost all Phoenixes who entered the > > Paths were dead first. > > Quite true, but we don't know that they pass 18 > tests rather > than 17. I have no real evidence for this, but it's possible that each House doesn't really have a "challenging" test. Each other House's test may be formatted to fit the nature and style of the members of the tested's House. Not all the tests were difficult. Many were simply walking along the path without leaving it or being distracted. The test equivalent to the Teckla, for example, was so easy Zerika apparently didn't even know it was a test or have to do anything extra. > Indeed, your quotation (I haven't read > LoCB, and > I'm grateful that you've been careful not to spoil > it) doesn't > say that there's an initial Phoenix test at all. > There's really nothing about Zerika's journey to spoil (that's written in LoCB). Paarfi mentions it only in the preface describing the events of the previous book (which he says was written merely at the urgings of the publisher). On page 17 (of course) of the hardback he says "it is impossible to recreate the elegant metaphorical journey, in which each of the Seventeen Houses was neatly encapsulated and symbolically transcended in a literary exploit of which only modesty prevents the full explication" in a parenthetical aside. Of course, after reading this I had to go back to the end of PotD and try to figure it out. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From howard at brazee.net Tue Feb 24 19:18:09 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:18:09 -0700 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <16442.22867.498575.354634@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <000801c3fb4d$fed102b0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> No, a dagger is -not- simply a short sword -- the handling characteristics are usually significantly different. (and I'd expect that Dragaeran daggers would be fairly heavy pieces as their primary purpose would be to intercept big heavy cuts). But a dagger which is part spellbreaker is something else From jjnichol at MIT.EDU Tue Feb 24 19:18:22 2004 From: jjnichol at MIT.EDU (Joy Jennifer Nicholson) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:18:22 -0500 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:53:52 MST." <20040220155352.GA1129@bofh.com> Message-ID: <200402250318.i1P3IMqS018450@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu> > > As to the Devera/Dragon thing, I always > > assumed that it was the same dragon from > > the paths of the dead, and any recognition > > would come from that. Recall that Steve > > said that nobody was anybody else. > > A long time ago, someone said (and I paraphrase) > > "I think that dragon might be Devera" > > To which Steven replied with (and again I paraphrase) > > "Give that person a cigar" iirc, it was a banana > > Thus making it canonical. > > I don't think that Devera showing up as a dragon violates > Steven's statements about noone being anyone else. > > As I recall, Vlad is admonished in _Taltos_ by Devera > not to tell her mom (Aliera) about her. He then goes > on to say "I met your daughter". I presume it's a > well known fact by _Issola_, even if she isn't born. > > (Regrettably I'm AFB, and Taltos isn't in the book search, > so I can't provide a textev for that, just my own failing > memory) > > -Jot > -- > Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ > "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" > -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From howard at brazee.net Tue Feb 24 19:14:41 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:14:41 -0700 Subject: Where was Dolivar? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000101c3fb4d$82ec3e80$b07ba8c0@Dad133> You get into a whole bunch of questions about Dragaeran reincarnation, though. How much of a choice rests with the reincarnating soul? Could it be that the Dolivar soul has tried several (dozen? hundred?) times to make its way back to power in the world, only to be reincarnated as leper, or a destitute farmer, or a third clerk in the Palace larder. Perhaps he "improved" with time, becoming slightly more or less influential with each life (there are shades of Hindu-style reincarnation in this theory). Until he hits upon/becomes Vlad. We don't know how the afterlife works. Some people become servants when they don't make it through the path correctly. Does being an aristocrat mean you will be reborn an aristocrat? Or maybe sometimes some kind of redemption is needed first. From jjnichol at MIT.EDU Tue Feb 24 19:13:37 2004 From: jjnichol at MIT.EDU (Joy Jennifer Nicholson) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:13:37 -0500 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 20 Feb 2004 07:19:36 EST." <0C911C32-639F-11D8-AFC5-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <200402250313.i1P3DbIT017930@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu> question below, after the spoiler pause.... > There is one piece of Issola that I thought I understood, but if it is > true that dragons cannot fly, then what is going on? > > Possible Issola Spoilers > > > > (Let's make this a three asterisk pause) > > > > > > > * > > > > * > > > > * > > > > p.233 > ...and there was a tremendous flash of light from directly overhead > that left me seeing spots just as I was wondering if I should get > involved somehow... The air had that queer tang it gets after a heavy > thunderstorm. > "What was that Loiosh?" > "Something from that guy overhead, I think, Boss." > "Good. Did it accomplish anything?" > "I don't know. But one of them is down." > I saw it then--one of the Jenoine was down indeed, and wouldn't be > getting up again, and there was no mystery about what had taken it out: > the dragon was holding it down with two paws and tearing chunks out of > the thing with its teeth... > > So, what was overhead if not the dragon? There is no mention of any > other entity flying around. > > Also, as to the identity of the Dragon as Devera (and I am aware of > certain ex cathedra comments): Since "Mommy isn't allowed to know" > about Devera's existence, what explains Sethra's comment to Aliera that > she should know who the dragon was? > > > Ken Gorelick > I read and re-read the end fight in Issola, but I never managed to figure out to my satisfaction: How many Jenoine were there? We hear about When I read something like this, I try to picture where everyone is, what they're doing, who's threatening them, but in this fight I just can't keep track of how many Jenoine there are and what they're all doing. Does anyone have it figured out? also, as a side question, how is Jenoine pronounced, anyway? It's not on the pronunciation list at the beginning of Jhereg..... From howard at brazee.net Tue Feb 24 19:12:09 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:12:09 -0700 Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3fb4d$2860ec40$b07ba8c0@Dad133> My favorite on this is from Brian Regan: "I before e except after c Or when sounding like 'a', As in neighbor and weigh. And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, And you'll always be wrong no matter what you say!" I don't get it. From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 24 19:26:06 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:26:06 -0500 Subject: basic questions about _Jhereg_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: #Are you suggesting that a double-consonant is a laxative, or is that #merely pararectal? No. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From howard at brazee.net Tue Feb 24 19:23:52 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:23:52 -0700 Subject: Geography: Has Castle Black Moved? In-Reply-To: <16442.5258.551201.599815@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <000c01c3fb4e$cb9bc4b0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> It's clear that Castle Black has a "customary" location. However, I seem to remember, and I do not think I do so incorrectly, that Castle Black is, in Dragon, moved to overfly the battle. If I am noit correct (and I rarely am), then it would seem that Morollan's home is still quite mobile (when he wishes it to be). That seems to be my memory as well. From mam at theworld.com Tue Feb 24 19:25:08 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:25:08 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: #This is ALL to subtle for me. I thought athiest meant the one with the #most athy. No, it describes the one who IS the most athy. Who may or may not be a resident of Athol, Mass. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From howard at brazee.net Tue Feb 24 19:21:16 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:21:16 -0700 Subject: Spellbreaker In-Reply-To: <53051341.74290297.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <000901c3fb4e$6e66d640$b07ba8c0@Dad133> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/brust/dream.html has: I let the gold chain I had misnamed Spellbreaker fall into my hand and I ran through the door up into Morrolan's high tower. Now when did he have the chain and believe he has misnamed it? What name would have been more appropriate at the time? From howard at brazee.net Tue Feb 24 19:29:15 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:29:15 -0700 Subject: Geography: An Introduction to the Map of Dragaera In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000d01c3fb4f$8bcb4ad0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> I made a decision early on to never check what kind of browser a user was using. So many web sites do some sort of version check to decide what a browser can and cannot do. If (IE6) blah else if (IE5) blah else if (Netscape 6) blah... This means, right off the bat, they have limited themselves to a specific set of browsers, and, moreover, they have to rework their sites every time a new version of their supported browser(s) is(are) released. At least have code so that if it isn't a recognized browser, it is assumed to be de jure compliant. I hate setting up Opera to lie to the web page in order to work. And I hate it when web pages only work with I.E. I even know of an IBM web page that is only compliant with I.E. It won't even work with a Linux browser. I.E. breaks a lot of rules and is a hackers dream browser. From howard at brazee.net Tue Feb 24 19:37:10 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:37:10 -0700 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000f01c3fb50$a7546fb0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Aetherial. Maybe God is The Ether. -----Original Message----- From: Mark A Mandel [mailto:mam at theworld.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 8:25 PM To: dragaera at dragaera.info Subject: Re: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: #This is ALL to subtle for me. I thought athiest meant the one with the #most athy. No, it describes the one who IS the most athy. Who may or may not be a resident of Athol, Mass. -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From jjnichol at MIT.EDU Tue Feb 24 19:41:14 2004 From: jjnichol at MIT.EDU (Joy Jennifer Nicholson) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:41:14 -0500 Subject: GEO: Brokedown Palace In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 22 Feb 2004 09:43:30 PST." <20040222174330.14235.qmail@web21406.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <200402250341.i1P3fEx4020872@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu> > > FYI I am trying for a street-map > of Adrilankha and it's a bowl of > spaghetti. I've got most of the > streets right around Vlad's old > office, but Mr. Brust has > perpendicular strees both having > North and South designations and > other issues. I know they're > curvatious, but goodness. I am > collecting tidbits about empire > geography as I go, and I will > pass those along soon. isn't there a map of adrilankha in yendi? > > Also, may I borrow someone's > Brokedown Palace? I will return > it wrapped in velvet and bubble > wrap and ship with a tracking > number. > > Ken > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. > http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 24 20:08:10 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 23:08:10 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: <000f01c3fb50$a7546fb0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> References: <000f01c3fb50$a7546fb0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: <39734762-6748-11D8-AC61-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Beware: sequential top posting below: That would be a gas--almost hypnotic, eh? On Feb 24, 2004, at 10:37 PM, Howard Brazee wrote: > Aetherial. Maybe God is The Ether. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Mark A Mandel [mailto:mam at theworld.com] > Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 8:25 PM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) > > On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > > #This is ALL to subtle for me. I thought athiest meant the one with the > #most athy. > > No, it describes the one who IS the most athy. > > Who may or may not be a resident of Athol, Mass. > > -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and > Philological Busybody > a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel > > From pulmon at comcast.net Tue Feb 24 20:06:35 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 23:06:35 -0500 Subject: Robert Jordan (was: Seen the other night....) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00876B34-6748-11D8-AC61-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 24, 2004, at 10:25 PM, Mark A Mandel wrote: > On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: > > #This is ALL to subtle for me. I thought athiest meant the one with the > #most athy. > > No, it describes the one who IS the most athy. > > Who may or may not be a resident of Athol, Mass. > > -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and > Philological Busybody > a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel > > Would it be too twisted to call a follower of the late dictator of Iraq a Ba'athiest? From davids at kithrup.com Tue Feb 24 20:18:20 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:18:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: GEO: Brokedown Palace In-Reply-To: <200402250341.i1P3fEx4020872@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu> Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Joy Jennifer Nicholson wrote: >> >> FYI I am trying for a street-map >> of Adrilankha and it's a bowl of >> spaghetti. I've got most of the >> streets right around Vlad's old >> office, but Mr. Brust has >> perpendicular strees both having >> North and South designations and >> other issues. >isn't there a map of adrilankha in yendi? Only if you think a map of Greenwich Village is the equivalent to a map of Manhattan. I do have a scan of those maps (Wellock's Area & Vlad's Area), if anyone wishes to view them or put them on a website... From marewhalen at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 20:21:06 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:21:06 -0800 (PST) Subject: Spellbreaker In-Reply-To: <000901c3fb4e$6e66d640$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: <20040225042106.31888.qmail@web14003.mail.yahoo.com> SPOILERS FOR A DREAM OF PASSION --- Howard Brazee wrote: > > > Now when did he have the chain and believe he has > misnamed it? What name > would have been more appropriate at the time? > This story was written many years ago, and presumably the planned story arc has changed in the meantime. Maybe Spellbreaker was always supposed to be an artifact of great power (sentient and with abilities it could use if it wanted) and Vlad would one day learn more, but the specifics were changed. Perhaps Vlad was meant to one day gain Godslayer and discover all of Spellbreaker's secrets but this was just too much for one man. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Mon Feb 23 21:01:49 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 21:01:49 -0800 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <6.0.0.22.0.20040222145916.01b5c5e0@tigger.uic.edu> References: <000a01c3f95d$92ec2490$b17ba8c0@Dad133> <221B308E-6554-11D8-90B4-000393D42F5A@yahoo.com> <6.0.0.22.0.20040222145916.01b5c5e0@tigger.uic.edu> Message-ID: <20040224050149.GA29642@ofb.net> On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 03:02:33PM -0600, Rachel L. Ruhlen wrote: > At 10:28 AM 2/22/2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > >As I recall Morrolan once mentioned in PoTD, his great weapon will "do > >what I tell it to do" meaning it doesn't necessarily have to destroy the > >person's soul if the bearer doesn't want it to. > > So in the scene in _Dragon_ where he allows Blackwand to eat the souls of > thousands of Easterners, at least according to Vlad's account, and his > evidence is the quality of their death screams, in that scene, Morrolan is And how good do you think that evidence is of what the magical-wand-for-causing-death-in-the-form-of-a-great-sword is doing? Eating souls, maybe. Causing death and terror, certainly. I don't think the Serioli name is just about it being Morganti. I think Blackwand is extra deadly, in some sense. -xx- Damien X-) From dd-b at dd-b.net Tue Feb 24 21:26:17 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 23:26:17 -0600 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <200402250313.i1P3DbIT017930@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu> (Joy Jennifer Nicholson's message of "Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:13:37 -0500") References: <200402250313.i1P3DbIT017930@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu> Message-ID: Joy Jennifer Nicholson writes: > also, as a side question, how is Jenoine pronounced, anyway? It's not on > the pronunciation list at the beginning of Jhereg..... (no sound file, but we do show how to pronounce the word) -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Mon Feb 23 21:14:54 2004 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 21:14:54 -0800 Subject: Devera as the dragon In-Reply-To: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040224044344.32027.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040224051454.GB29642@ofb.net> On Mon, Feb 23, 2004 at 08:43:44PM -0800, mary whalen wrote: > > I don't agree that the dragon seen at the end of > _Issola_ was Devera in another form. I think the > similarity to Aliera was meant to indicate that Kieron > had left the Paths in some way (perhaps in a new > temporary body or merely possessing a totem of his > house). This also helps explain why Sethra said that > Aliera shoud know him since she had met Kieron and her. Sethra said "leave her alone, we'll adjust." > If this isn't meant to be Kieron then I don't think > we're meant to know who it is yet. If it's not Kieron, why not Devera? And Steve seemed to confirm it was Devera, see the FAQ. -xx- Damien X-) From umbraenoctis at hotmail.com Tue Feb 24 23:18:30 2004 From: umbraenoctis at hotmail.com (James Griffin) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 23:18:30 -0800 Subject: Flying Dragons Message-ID: >From: Joy Jennifer Nicholson >To: Kenneth Gorelick >CC: Dragaera List <> >Subject: Re: Flying Dragons >Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 22:13:37 -0500 > >question below, after the spoiler pause.... > > > > There is one piece of Issola that I thought I understood, but if it is > > true that dragons cannot fly, then what is going on? Definite Issola Spoilers > > > > > > (Let's make this a three asterisk pause) > > > > > > > > > > > > > > * > > > > > > > > * > > > > > > > > * > > > > > > > > p.233 > > ...and there was a tremendous flash of light from directly overhead > > that left me seeing spots just as I was wondering if I should get > > involved somehow... The air had that queer tang it gets after a heavy > > thunderstorm. > > "What was that Loiosh?" > > "Something from that guy overhead, I think, Boss." > > "Good. Did it accomplish anything?" > > "I don't know. But one of them is down." > > I saw it then--one of the Jenoine was down indeed, and wouldn't be > > getting up again, and there was no mystery about what had taken it out: > > the dragon was holding it down with two paws and tearing chunks out of > > the thing with its teeth... > > > > So, what was overhead if not the dragon? There is no mention of any > > other entity flying around. As already mentioned, there was one "god" ( nobody could seen him? her? it?) shrouded in darkness hovering about fifty feet overhead. Check out a few previous pages where it describes the various arriving deities. > >(snip) > > > > >I read and re-read the end fight in Issola, but I never managed to figure >out to my satisfaction: How many Jenoine were there? We hear about >When I read something like this, I try to picture where everyone is, what >they're doing, who's threatening them, but in this fight I just can't keep >track of how many Jenoine there are and what they're all doing. Does >anyone >have it figured out? As I remember reading, there were four Jenoine. Two were facing Adron/Lesser Sea (broke Necromance's block to escape), One (eaten/rent/shredded by dragon) holding off gods (in general-not Verra, who was with Sethra's party), One (sucked up by Godslayer, Pathfinder, and Iceflame) facing Sethra's party. I believe the sequence goes something like this: Scene: Cliff overlooking/fronting Lesser Sea 1 Sethra's party arrives. Necromancer gets to work. 2. Gods arrive (with dragon). 3. Jenoine arrive. 4a. Two Jenoine start sucking up chaos/ resetting their connection to Lesser Sea. (undoing Necromancer's work) 4b. Two Jenoine hold off the advancing attackers. (split up) 5. Morrollan goes down. (looks permanent, but Blackwand is still active.) 6. One Jenoine goes down (by means of dragon.) 7. Face-off between Sethra, Aliera, and Verra versus other single Jenoine. 8. Gods stymied. (presumably one of the paired Jenoine is defending against the gods now in place of the dragon-eaten former Jenoine. I can't remember) 9. Teldra takes Vlad's Morganti blade and stabs the Jenoine facing Sethra and Co. 10. Jenoine returns the favor. 11a. Godslayer re-born. 11b. Slays single Jenoine. (Iceflame & Pathfinder "join the party.") 12a. Adron severs Jenoine connection to Lesser Sea. 12b. Two remaining Jenoine flee. That is roughly how I remember it, but I don't have the book in front, so I'm certain everyone will chime in at some point or other. James Griffin, Still Another Vlad faN _________________________________________________________________ Say ?good-bye? to spam, viruses and pop-ups with MSN Premium -- free trial offer! http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200359ave/direct/01/ From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Feb 25 04:09:15 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 07:09:15 -0500 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: References: <200402250313.i1P3DbIT017930@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu> Message-ID: <6E156843-678B-11D8-AC61-0003938F1608@comcast.net> On Feb 25, 2004, at 12:26 AM, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Joy Jennifer Nicholson writes: > >> also, as a side question, how is Jenoine pronounced, anyway? It's >> not on >> the pronunciation list at the beginning of Jhereg..... > > (no sound > file, but we do show how to pronounce the word) > -- > David Dyer-Bennet, , > RKBA: > Photos: Snapshots: > > Dragaera/Steven Brust: > > Of course, the pronunciation is only a part of the enigma. It seems interesting to me that a race for whom reality is a mathematical expression, who seem to live in the only "real" space, with territory beyond it being the equivalent of dream-walking, should have a racial name that appears to be a colloquial pronunciation of "genuine"... From howard at brazee.net Wed Feb 25 04:43:24 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 05:43:24 -0700 Subject: Flying Dragons In-Reply-To: <6E156843-678B-11D8-AC61-0003938F1608@comcast.net> Message-ID: <000301c3fb9c$f6142090$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Of course, the pronunciation is only a part of the enigma. It seems interesting to me that a race for whom reality is a mathematical expression, who seem to live in the only "real" space, with territory beyond it being the equivalent of dream-walking, should have a racial name that appears to be a colloquial pronunciation of "genuine"... However the Dragaerans pronounce it is "genuine" for them. From howard at brazee.net Wed Feb 25 04:48:42 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 05:48:42 -0700 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <20040224050149.GA29642@ofb.net> Message-ID: <000501c3fb9d$b34f6cf0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> I don't think the Serioli name is just about it being Morganti. I think Blackwand is extra deadly, in some sense. We don't really know all of the characteristics of that weapon - but it is apparent that no Great Weapon is the same and that they all have special purposes - and probably they all have personalities. From blackbird0 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 25 06:20:45 2004 From: blackbird0 at yahoo.com (Jeffrey Kiok) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 06:20:45 -0800 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <000501c3fb9d$b34f6cf0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> References: <000501c3fb9d$b34f6cf0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: Well, if we really want to look at the name "Blackwand", I think saying it is extra deadly it simplifying it a bit too much. Black is the color of sorcery. A Wand is a sorcerous implement (are there any in the dragaeraean world?). Although certainly a particularly sorcerous instrument is "extra deadly", if I had to take my bet, I'd say it had something special to do with sorcery. However, my theory isn't supported by the fact that we always hear that although Morrolan is "above average" and an extremely talented sorcery, we always hear that his particular talent is with the blade. -jeff On Feb 25, 2004, at 4:48 AM, Howard Brazee wrote: > > > I don't think the Serioli name is just about it being Morganti. I > think > Blackwand is extra deadly, in some sense. > > > We don't really know all of the characteristics of that weapon - but > it is > apparent that no Great Weapon is the same and that they all have > special > purposes - and probably they all have personalities. > From warlord at dragon.com Wed Feb 25 06:46:16 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:46:16 -0500 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <20040224050149.GA29642@ofb.net> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: Damien Sullivan [mailto:phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu] > Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 12:02 AM > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) > > > On Sun, Feb 22, 2004 at 03:02:33PM -0600, Rachel L. Ruhlen wrote: > > At 10:28 AM 2/22/2004, Jeffrey Kiok wrote: > > >As I recall Morrolan once mentioned in PoTD, his great weapon will "do > > >what I tell it to do" meaning it doesn't necessarily have to > destroy the > > >person's soul if the bearer doesn't want it to. > > > > So in the scene in _Dragon_ where he allows Blackwand to eat > the souls of > > thousands of Easterners, at least according to Vlad's account, and his > > evidence is the quality of their death screams, in that scene, > Morrolan is > > And how good do you think that evidence is of what the > magical-wand-for-causing-death-in-the-form-of-a-great-sword is > doing? Eating > souls, maybe. Causing death and terror, certainly. > > I don't think the Serioli name is just about it being Morganti. I think > Blackwand is extra deadly, in some sense. > > -xx- Damien X-) > Black is the color of sorcery. Blackwand also replaced Morrolans wizards staff. Blackwand is Morrolans familiar. I'd say that Blackwand is extra deadly in the arts of sorcerous battle. [insert your own julian fries joke here] W "Women. Can't live with 'em, pass the beer nuts." ---Norm From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Wed Feb 25 07:31:12 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 07:31:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: GEO: Brokedown Palace In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040225153112.13266.qmail@web21402.mail.yahoo.com> > >isn't there a map of adrilankha in yendi? You must have a single volume edition of Yendi. I don't seem to have that in the compilation. > Only if you think a map of Greenwich Village is the > equivalent to > a map of Manhattan. Yep, that's about all I have right now. > I do have a scan of those maps (Wellock's Area & > Vlad's Area), > if anyone wishes to view them or put them on a > website... Yes, please. I will put them on my web site if that's okay with you and I don't hear anything >from The Copywrite Owners That Be. Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From mia_mcdavid at comcast.net Wed Feb 25 07:54:17 2004 From: mia_mcdavid at comcast.net (Mia McDavid) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:54:17 -0600 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <403CC529.6020100@comcast.net> Warlord wrote: > >Black is the color of sorcery. Blackwand also replaced Morrolans wizards >staff. >Blackwand is Morrolans familiar. I'd say that Blackwand is extra deadly in >the >arts of sorcerous battle. > Ummm, no. Morrolan's staff spends most of its time disguised as a ring on his finger. IIRC, this is made clear in Issola. Mia From mneme at io.com Wed Feb 25 08:02:31 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 10:02:31 -0600 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <403CC529.6020100@comcast.net> References: <403CC529.6020100@comcast.net> Message-ID: <16444.50967.645618.49957@fnord.io.com> Mia McDavid writes: >Warlord wrote: >>Black is the color of sorcery. Blackwand also replaced Morrolans wizards >>staff. >Ummm, no. Morrolan's staff spends most of its time disguised as a ring >on his finger. IIRC, this is made clear in Issola. Um...those are both made clear in Issola -- that Morrolan doesn't use his staff much, since he can use Blackwand instead for the same purpose, and that his staff is usually transformed into a ring. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From books at bofh.com Wed Feb 25 08:01:42 2004 From: books at bofh.com (Jot Powers) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:01:42 -0700 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: References: <20040224050149.GA29642@ofb.net> Message-ID: <20040225160142.GB24354@bofh.com> On Wed, Feb 25, 2004 at 09:46:16AM -0500, Warlord wrote: > Black is the color of sorcery. Blackwand also replaced Morrolans wizards > staff. Minor nit. Blackwand replaced Morrolan's wizard staff for _MOST_ things. As pointed out in _Issola_ there are times a wizard staff is evidently more appropriate. -Jot -- Jot Powers http://www.bofh.com/books/ "I'm upping my standards, so up yours!" -Pat Paulsen (1927-1997), Presidential Campaign Slogan From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 25 08:59:13 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 11:59:13 -0500 Subject: Spellbreaker In-Reply-To: <20040225042106.31888.qmail@web14003.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, mary whalen wrote: #SPOILERS FOR A DREAM OF PASSION # #--- Howard Brazee wrote: #> #> #> Now when did he have the chain and believe he has #> misnamed it? What name #> would have been more appropriate at the time? #> # # This story was written many years ago, and #presumably the planned story arc has changed in the #meantime. It's been established -- confirmed by Steve -- that ADOP is not part of the "official" continuity. Consider it just what the title says: a dream. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website From warlord at dragon.com Wed Feb 25 09:01:34 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 12:01:34 -0500 Subject: Feeling haikuish on a rainy day In-Reply-To: <20040225160142.GB24354@bofh.com> Message-ID: Mythical times pass Thirty-one tribes bickering The Empire is born Uncovered plots sour Dragaera city goes boom Chaos changes life Interregnum ends Zerika retrieves the Orb Sorcery prevails Yendi plots abound Jhereg battles Dragonlord Easterners revolt Tiassa protects Castles are floating once more Issola struck down Jenoine attack Gods with Dragon intervene Dragaera endures As the cycle turns These are the reigns of our lives When Paarfi expounds W From marewhalen at yahoo.com Wed Feb 25 09:36:52 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:36:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Devera as dragon Message-ID: <20040225173652.17544.qmail@web14004.mail.yahoo.com> SPOILERS FOR ISSOLA I know that Sethra said "her" after talking about the dragon. However, it seems to me that she was in psychic communication with someone else, interrupting the dragon talk, and answered something unrelated about another "her" during the psychic conversation. I saw the repost of Steve's apparent confirmation, and think he's just being subtle for some reason. Originally someone was looking for Devera's appearance in _Issola_ and guessed that it was the dragon. If that was not right, and Steve thought that someone was grasping at straws or making too much of something he might respond with "give the man a banana" instead of direct confirmation/denial. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Wed Feb 25 09:45:20 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:45:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: Zerika in Paths In-Reply-To: <20040224221826.81901.qmail@web14421.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20040225174520.99520.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> --- Jerry Friedman wrote: > > --- mary whalen wrote: > > > > --- Jerry Friedman > wrote: > > > > > > S > > > P > > > O > > > I > > > L > > > E > > > R > > > > > > F > > > O > > > R > > > > > > P > > > o > > > t > > > D! > > > > > > > > > I'm impressed by this list, but I wonder whether > the > > > first Phoenix > > > incident was jumping off the cliff--"dying" to > be > > > reborn. > > > > Of course, almost all Phoenixes who entered the > > Paths were dead first. > > Quite true, but we don't know that they pass 18 > tests rather > than 17. Indeed, your quotation (I haven't read > LoCB, and > I'm grateful that you've been careful not to spoil > it) doesn't > say that there's an initial Phoenix test at all. > > Jerry Friedman > No, I don't think that Zerika had to pass an extra test because she was alive or for any other reason. I think that all who come to the Paths of the Dead (or at least all Phoenixes if the others are tested somewhat differently) are given 17 tests* before they reach the Halls of Judgement. The test of entering and of leaving aren't two different ones, they're the same test (or two parts of the same test). Just like the poem of the Cycle doesn't have eighteen Houses, it just comes back to the Phoenix (just like the real Cycle continues turning) and describes another part of its character. *assuming Paarfi is correct __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From xmasberry at mail.com Wed Feb 25 09:52:35 2004 From: xmasberry at mail.com (h christmas) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 10:52:35 -0700 Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: <000001c3fb4d$2860ec40$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: On 2/24/04 8:12 PM, "Howard Brazee" wrote: > My favorite on this is from Brian Regan: > > "I before e except after c > Or when sounding like 'a', > As in neighbor and weigh. > And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, > And you'll always be wrong no matter what you say!" > > > I don't get it. > Basically that there are so many exceptions that you are doomed to get it wrong if you just follow the rules of the poem. From mam at theworld.com Wed Feb 25 10:21:17 2004 From: mam at theworld.com (Mark A Mandel) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 13:21:17 -0500 Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, h christmas wrote: #Basically that there are so many exceptions that you are doomed to get it #wrong if you just follow the rules of the poem. *Any* poem! -- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and Philological Busybody a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel From davids at kithrup.com Wed Feb 25 11:39:10 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 11:39:10 -0800 (PST) Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: <000001c3fb4d$2860ec40$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: On Tue, 24 Feb 2004, Howard Brazee wrote: >My favorite on this is from Brian Regan: > >"I before e except after c >Or when sounding like 'a', >As in neighbor and weigh. >And on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, >And you'll always be wrong no matter what you say!" > > >I don't get it. > > Outlook should allow you to use prefixed quote characters, rather than your rather confusing method of simply including it (which makes it impossible to distinguish between material written by the person you are replying to, and your reply). On Outlook 2000, at any rate, the sequence is: Tools > Options > E-mail Options > "On replies and forwards", "When replying to a message", change the drop-down list to: "Prefix each line of original message" Please make sure that you are using ">" as a quote prefix. From davids at kithrup.com Wed Feb 25 11:45:17 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 11:45:17 -0800 (PST) Subject: GEO: Brokedown Palace In-Reply-To: <20040225153112.13266.qmail@web21402.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Kenneth Stone wrote: > >> I do have a scan of those maps (Wellock's Area & >> Vlad's Area), if anyone wishes to view them or >> put them on a website... > >Yes, please. I will put them on my web site >if that's okay with you and I don't hear anything >from The Copywrite Owners That Be. > I received permission from SKZB a while back, so I think he's OK with it. I'll send you the image as a separate attachment. It's a 145KB jpg. From zarkon at illrepute.org Wed Feb 25 12:47:10 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 15:47:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Feeling haikuish on a rainy day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Warlord wrote: @> As the cycle turns @> These are the reigns of our lives @> When Paarfi expounds Murder in alleys Assassin, young and restless Kills his oppressors Unaware of his nature The heritage of his soul Bold and beautiful A golden-haired Dragonlord Touchy as all hell Child of magic and chaos And mother to mystery Ill-starred Dragonlord Sates his passions; blood and souls Carries a black sword A wand for creating death Student of magic and war Soldier, vampire, thief Has more than one life to live Empire in one hand A mountain in the other If you have upset her, run From warlord at dragon.com Wed Feb 25 12:56:17 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 15:56:17 -0500 Subject: Feeling haikuish on a rainy day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: John Klein [mailto:zarkon at illrepute.org] > Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 3:47 PM > On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Warlord wrote: > > @> As the cycle turns > @> These are the reigns of our lives > @> When Paarfi expounds > > Murder in alleys > Assassin, young and restless > Kills his oppressors > Unaware of his nature > The heritage of his soul > > Bold and beautiful > A golden-haired Dragonlord > Touchy as all hell > Child of magic and chaos > And mother to mystery > > Ill-starred Dragonlord > Sates his passions; blood and souls > Carries a black sword > A wand for creating death > Student of magic and war > > Soldier, vampire, thief > Has more than one life to live > Empire in one hand > A mountain in the other > If you have upset her, run > > Tanka you very much, that was cool. :) W From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Wed Feb 25 13:02:34 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 13:02:34 -0800 (PST) Subject: Feeling haikuish on a rainy day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I wrote this years ago based on an actual experience with no thoughts of Dragaera - but perhaps it's vaguely apropos: Emergency Measures Friday, Saturday night I was too wiped out when I got home from the lab to go back out - I had some plain pasta, some tuna, some supposedly Swiss cheese. Tonight I go to my favorite French place. It's closed. Maybe Sophie wasn't in a cooking mood. The alternate French place, with its same-for-months menu and its waiter who asks me if I want my roast duck medium or well-done, is open - that is, there's a stool at the bar. >From here I see for the first time the cloak room and its shelf of bottles of Heinz, A-1, tabasco, and Grey Poupon. I taste the dark-red sauce of green peppercorns and cassis very carefully. Well, it's delicious, the duck's just past bleu, the infant carrots with the green left are a nice touch. And the wine withstands the pepper. In fact, after a glass most of the tie-ropes have been released, but there are still hours of evening to withstand, and with a second glass they're tossing the ballast-bags down. A man walks out of the cloak room without having entered it. He's dark, tall, wears a leather jacket and mercury-colored contact lenses or isn't human - two hooks were sunk below his cheekbones as a child so he could be hanged at night from the ceiling, explaining the tilt of his eyes, the permanent meaningless smile, the obvious easy familiarity with pain. The enitre overdecorated room with its relentlessly well-dressed customers is behind me, and I decide I don't need a coffee. From zarkon at illrepute.org Wed Feb 25 13:09:32 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:09:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: Feeling haikuish on a rainy day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Warlord wrote: @> Tanka you very much, Less than ten minutes. I knew it. ;) From warlord at dragon.com Wed Feb 25 13:28:53 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 16:28:53 -0500 Subject: Feeling haikuish on a rainy day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: John Klein [mailto:zarkon at illrepute.org] > Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 4:10 PM > > On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Warlord wrote: > > @> Tanka you very much, > > Less than ten minutes. I knew it. ;) > Blame slow mail servers From knots4kcs at yahoo.com Wed Feb 25 14:13:50 2004 From: knots4kcs at yahoo.com (Kenneth Stone) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 14:13:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Streetmaps In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040225221351.28000.qmail@web21404.mail.yahoo.com> --- David Silberstein wrote: > On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Kenneth Stone wrote: > > > > >> I do have a scan of those maps (Wellock's Area & > >> Vlad's Area), if anyone wishes to view them or > >> put them on a website... > > > >Yes, please. I will put them on my web site > >if that's okay with you and I don't hear anything > >from The Copyright Owners That Be. > > > > I received permission from SKZB a while back, so > I think he's OK with it. > > I'll send you the image as a separate attachment. > It's a 145KB jpg. > Many thanks! Everyone can see them at http://www.unc.edu/~kstone/ (right click and View Image to see it at 100%) Ken __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From bryann at bryann.net Wed Feb 25 16:29:39 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 18:29:39 -0600 Subject: Geography: Update Message-ID: Thank you for your patience. I cleaned up my new Brust page a little bit. I consolidated the "Notes on Measurements..." page into the Introduction, and updated the Introduction with a few more sections. I also added a links section to the bottom of the main Brust page--if I left anyone off, please let me know. I mostly scrounged this list off of Cracks and Shards. I hope to have a Map Offering (tm) within the next week or so. Stay tuned. Bryan Newell (http://bryann.net) Come see the roses, dying in the dark. From Gaertk at aol.com Wed Feb 25 17:38:20 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 20:38:20 -0500 Subject: Spellbreaker Message-ID: <7A8232FC.19558736.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/24/2004 11:21:06 PM Eastern Standard Time, mary whalen writes: > > SPOILERS FOR A DREAM OF PASSION > > --- Howard Brazee wrote: >> >> Now when did he have the chain and believe he has >> misnamed it? ? What name would have been more appropriate >> at the time? >> > > ? This story was written many years ago, and > presumably the planned story arc has changed in the > meantime. ?Maybe Spellbreaker was always supposed to > be an artifact of great power (sentient and with > abilities it could use if it wanted) and Vlad would > one day learn more, but the specifics were changed. > Perhaps Vlad was meant to one day gain Godslayer and > discover all of Spellbreaker's secrets but this was > just too much for one man. Or maybe we should put more emphasis on the second word of the title. --KG From Gaertk at aol.com Wed Feb 25 17:36:33 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 20:36:33 -0500 Subject: Morganti regret (Dragon spoilers within) Message-ID: <64000B34.67435A45.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/24/2004 12:01:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, Damien Sullivan writes: > And how good do you think that evidence is of what the > magical-wand-for-causing-death-in-the-form-of-a-great-sword > is doing? ?Eating souls, maybe. ?Causing death and terror, > certainly. > > I don't think the Serioli name is just about it being > Morganti. ?I think Blackwand is extra deadly, in some > sense. _Dragon_, pg 110 (mmpb): "I should not, however, translate it as 'creating death'. It would be more precise to say 'removing life-substance'. Or perhaps 'sending the life-substance to --'." I really wish Morrolan hadn't interrupted at this point. Any guesses as to what the next term would have been? Paths of the Dead (or Halls of Judgement) is a possibility. Hrmmm... Iceflame -- power source Blackwand -- getting people/souls to the PotD Pathfinder -- tracking down the gods Godslayer -- removing them You know, I very nearly think that makes sense. --KG From lister at insaneninjahero.com Wed Feb 25 17:48:53 2004 From: lister at insaneninjahero.com (Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 17:48:53 -0800 Subject: Morganti regret (Dragon spoilers within) In-Reply-To: <64000B34.67435A45.00048EA6@aol.com> References: <64000B34.67435A45.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <403D5085.30902@insaneninjahero.com> Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/24/2004 12:01:49 AM Eastern Standard Time, > Damien Sullivan writes: > > >>And how good do you think that evidence is of what the >>magical-wand-for-causing-death-in-the-form-of-a-great-sword >>is doing? Eating souls, maybe. Causing death and terror, >>certainly. >> >>I don't think the Serioli name is just about it being >>Morganti. I think Blackwand is extra deadly, in some >>sense. > > > _Dragon_, pg 110 (mmpb): > "I should not, however, translate it as 'creating death'. It > would be more precise to say 'removing life-substance'. Or > perhaps 'sending the life-substance to --'." > > I really wish Morrolan hadn't interrupted at this point. Any > guesses as to what the next term would have been? Paths of > the Dead (or Halls of Judgement) is a possibility. Hrmmm... > > Iceflame -- power source > Blackwand -- getting people/souls to the PotD > Pathfinder -- tracking down the gods > Godslayer -- removing them > > You know, I very nearly think that makes sense. > > > --KG > > > Er, where is it ever suggested that Blackwand sends souls to the PotD? They pretty much "go away" so far as we know now, don't they? Or are absorbed into the sword, as it were. One assumes that something more is going on, but if the suggestion has been made that Blackwand takes or destroys those souls, one is left to assume that they don't make an immediate appearance on the Paths. Derrill From howard at brazee.net Wed Feb 25 18:01:38 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 19:01:38 -0700 Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000101c3fc0c$78b87ef0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> > Outlook should allow you to use prefixed quote characters, rather than your rather confusing method of simply including it (which makes it impossible to distinguish between material written by the person you are replying to, and your reply). On Outlook 2000, at any rate, the sequence is: Tools > Options > E-mail Options > "On replies and forwards", "When replying to a message", change the drop-down list to: "Prefix each line of original message" Please make sure that you are using ">" as a quote prefix. Outlook wasn't designed for newsgroup type messages, and this is a newsgroup type messages. I don't usually stick around listservers for very long unless I can read the messages on a newsgroup. I'm on one listserver (IBM-Main), that I read via my newsgroup reader, and then have to remember to edit the "reply to", from the newsgroup to the listserver name if I want everybody to read it. I gave up on a Bujold listserver. It's hard to make it work with my spam filters, they interrupt my work, and don't work well with Outlook. From jtrager at keyway.net Wed Feb 25 18:13:00 2004 From: jtrager at keyway.net (John Trager) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 18:13:00 -0800 Subject: Morganti regret (Dragon spoilers within) Message-ID: <200402260215.i1Q2ForE075378@mail.keyway.net> "Derrill 'Kisc' Guilbert" wrote: >Er, where is it ever suggested that Blackwand sends souls to the PotD? Perhaps Blackwand sends souls to the Great Sea of Chaos... Maybe even in return for a little jolt of sorcerous power? From howard at brazee.net Wed Feb 25 18:13:34 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 19:13:34 -0700 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000701c3fc0e$23975d90$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Black is the color of sorcery. Blackwand also replaced Morrolans wizards staff. Blackwand is Morrolans familiar. I'd say that Blackwand is extra deadly in the arts of sorcerous battle. [insert your own julian fries joke here] Black is Morrlan's color. Everything he does is black. From howard at brazee.net Wed Feb 25 18:11:39 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 19:11:39 -0700 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000601c3fc0d$def88830$b07ba8c0@Dad133> -----Original Message----- From: John Klein [mailto:zarkon at illrepute.org] Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 7:58 AM To: howard at brazee.net Subject: RE: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Howard Brazee wrote: @> I don't think the Serioli name is just about it being Morganti. I think @> Blackwand is extra deadly, in some sense. @> @> @> We don't really know all of the characteristics of that weapon - but it is @> apparent that no Great Weapon is the same and that they all have special @> purposes - and probably they all have personalities. Good for you for posting on the bottom. It's also pretty important to delimit which comments are quoted, though. Otherwise, it looks like something caused a rebroadcast of an earlier message (particularly if the quoted text is longer than a screenful) and people will be less likely to read it (and more confused when they do). I think this already went out on the list, but the following links may be of some help: http://flash.to/outlook-quotefix/ I just installed it and am running it. It still isn't nearly as good as using a newsgroup reader. From pulmon at comcast.net Wed Feb 25 19:43:45 2004 From: pulmon at comcast.net (Kenneth Gorelick) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 22:43:45 -0500 Subject: Feeling haikuish on a rainy day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Feb 25, 2004, at 3:56 PM, Warlord wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: John Klein [mailto:zarkon at illrepute.org] >> Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 3:47 PM >> On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Warlord wrote: >> >> @> As the cycle turns >> @> These are the reigns of our lives >> @> When Paarfi expounds >> >> Murder in alleys >> Assassin, young and restless >> Kills his oppressors >> Unaware of his nature >> The heritage of his soul >> >> Bold and beautiful >> A golden-haired Dragonlord >> Touchy as all hell >> Child of magic and chaos >> And mother to mystery >> >> Ill-starred Dragonlord >> Sates his passions; blood and souls >> Carries a black sword >> A wand for creating death >> Student of magic and war >> >> Soldier, vampire, thief >> Has more than one life to live >> Empire in one hand >> A mountain in the other >> If you have upset her, run >> >> > > Tanka you very much, that was cool. :) > > W So this is what Paarfi would do to Haiku! From howard at brazee.net Thu Feb 26 05:07:56 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 06:07:56 -0700 Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: <000101c3fc0c$78b87ef0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: <000501c3fc69$8d7ad970$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Howard Brazee wrote: > Outlook should allow you to use prefixed quote characters, rather than > your rather confusing method of simply including it (which makes it > impossible to distinguish between material written by the person you > are replying to, and your reply). > > On Outlook 2000, at any rate, the sequence is: > > Tools > Options > E-mail Options > "On replies and forwards", > "When replying to a message", change the drop-down list to: > "Prefix each line of original message" > I had to turn off Word as my editor. What I need is the ability to switch that back and forth as I need it for work purposes. (Or find the ability to reply to messages using my newsreader. From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Thu Feb 26 05:13:36 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:13:36 -0500 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation Message-ID: <95DE5B9A-685D-11D8-BC0D-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> The talk about what exactly does a Morganti weapon (whether or not Blackwand is typical) _really_ do with a soul reminds me of one of the questions that hovers in the back of my mind in all the Dragaeran novels. It's the same question in any fantasy world which has reincarnation and/or soul eating: In the specific metaphysics of this world, _are_ souls destructible? Must there therefore also be a source of souls? What are the 'laws' of soul birth, migration, and (possible) death? I imagine that many authors of complex fantasy worlds have those answers, or at least a few guiding thoughts, that they conceal or reveal to readers as they see fit (concealment possibly indicating intended use of the theme/subject, or otherwise a desire to preserve the freedom to work within a loose framing concept). So I have no guarantee that Steve has figured this out in his own head (or that he even finds it of great interest to the story he wants to tell), but it is one of those things an author has gotten one of his readers to wonder about the world he's created. Bizarre Hempen Analog (Noam Raphael Izenberg - pass that clip along, please) From mneme at io.com Thu Feb 26 06:47:52 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:47:52 -0600 Subject: I before E In-Reply-To: <000501c3fc69$8d7ad970$b07ba8c0@Dad133> References: <000101c3fc0c$78b87ef0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> <000501c3fc69$8d7ad970$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Message-ID: <16446.1816.305925.28247@fnord.io.com> Howard Brazee writes: >I had to turn off Word as my editor. Word is not, in fact, a very good email editor, especially for internet standard mail. >What I need is the ability to switch that back and forth as I need it for >work purposes. (Or find the ability to reply to messages using my >newsreader. Um. Can you just edit documents in word and attach them in Outlook? -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From zarkon at illrepute.org Thu Feb 26 07:50:29 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 10:50:29 -0500 (EST) Subject: Feeling haikuish on a rainy day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Kenneth Gorelick wrote: @> > Tanka you very much, that was cool. :) @> @> So this is what Paarfi would do to Haiku! Probably. http://www.americantanka.com/ From greyw01f at hotmail.com Thu Feb 26 10:08:05 2004 From: greyw01f at hotmail.com (J C) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:08:05 +0000 Subject: Souls/Morganti Message-ID: Here are my thoughts on the subject of what the Great Weapons do: As before, the list is pretty well thought out, I think: Iceflame = immense power, ability to do all sorts of things mystical, like perhaps breaking the barriers between the worlds. Blackwand = removes souls from the process of reincarnation--ie, removes the God's ability to influence reality without manifesting, where they are vulnerable, as we see in _BP_. This is, I think, more likely than it sending the souls to the paths. I would posit that Blackwand is more something that achieves a "sending of life-substance to ...other dimensions/planes of existence/realities..." Assuming a soul cannot be destroyed, as per the law of conservation of souls, (Carey, Jon. Pararectal, Trent University Publishing, 2004) then it means that a soul can be removed from one reality to another via an "eating" process, or, more accurately, a transferral process (Ibid.) It would explain, for instance, why Great Weapons wouldn't get "full" or need "recharging". Their power is their own, they need no fuel to maintain their properties. If any external power is used, I would imagine it would originate, or at least involve, the connection that it has to the wielder, and possibly, if Godslayer is not an exception the soul that is used in the making of it. I mean, think of it. If one soul eaten, plus a chain of enchanted goldstone, and then another soul, not eaten, is enough to power *GODSLAYER* then I don't think that such blades would need to harvest souls in order to gain energy. Otherwise, Blackwand would make Godslayer, who/which has been inactive for the past while, to say the least, look like some children's toy, or maybe one of those plastic swords that people put through sandwiches. Perhaps where the blades send them is to Morgant. A planet full of wonderfully confused people, at least, to their own history, that is. (Ibid.) I would imagine that the Necromancer and a Serioli smith could have wonderful conversations. Perhaps the Serioli smith is Mario. Jon _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca From dd-b at dd-b.net Thu Feb 26 12:00:18 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 14:00:18 -0600 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: <95DE5B9A-685D-11D8-BC0D-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> (Noam Izenberg's message of "Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:13:36 -0500") References: <95DE5B9A-685D-11D8-BC0D-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: Noam Izenberg writes: > The talk about what exactly does a Morganti weapon > (whether or not Blackwand is typical) (cutting your off in the middle of a sentence) Stop right there! To suggest that a *great weapon* is typical of Morganti weapons is *clearly wrong*. > In the specific metaphysics of this world, _are_ souls > destructible? Must there therefore also be a source of > souls? What are the 'laws' of soul birth, migration, and > (possible) death? Yes; ordinary morganti weapons destroy them. The details of the rest of it are undocumented, so far as I can see. We know there's reincarnation. We don't know if there's a large initial pool, or if new souls are also created on-the-fly as needed. Given that time isn't the same thing to the gods as it is to us, these questions may be meaningless in the frame in which souls are handled. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Thu Feb 26 12:26:30 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 15:26:30 -0500 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: References: <95DE5B9A-685D-11D8-BC0D-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: <0FF7F314-689A-11D8-92F2-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 26, 2004, at 3:00 PM, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Noam Izenberg writes: > >> The talk about what exactly does a Morganti weapon >> (whether or not Blackwand is typical) > > (cutting your off in the middle of a sentence) > > Stop right there! To suggest that a *great weapon* is typical of > Morganti weapons is *clearly wrong*. I fought my contrarian impulse, but lost; Y'all get to suffer. I have no argument that Blackwand is an ordinary Morganti blade. However, there must be aspects of similarity between even that Great Weapon and a 'normal' Morganti, or else, Blackwand would not be _called_ Morganti. I therefore suggest that while Blackwand may indeed be much more, it almost _must_ have some "typical" Morganti features. >> In the specific metaphysics of this world, _are_ souls >> destructible? Must there therefore also be a source of >> souls? What are the 'laws' of soul birth, migration, and >> (possible) death? > > Yes; ordinary morganti weapons destroy them. Says Vlad. Do we trust his perspective here? Morrolan's cut off description of Blackwand could be read to imply otherwise. Here is where the similarities and differeneces between Blackwand and a typical Morganti migh be very important indeed. > Given that time isn't the same thing to the gods as it is to us, these > questions may be meaningless in the frame in which souls are handled. If time is meaningless in that frame, then so is "destruction" of a soul (and creation of one, I might add). That's a deus ex copout, however, by which I mean "The Gods work in Mysterious Ways Period" can be used to avoid answering the question. Of course, an author's entitled to say that the metaphysics of his world is beyond our ken. It wouldn't bother me _too_ much for certain things, though it would for things upon which the plot or major story elements relied. NI ("We are the Knights who say...") From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Thu Feb 26 12:31:52 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:31:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation Message-ID: <200402262031.i1QKVqg18404@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> > The details of the rest of it are undocumented, so far as I can see. > We know there's reincarnation. We don't know if there's a large > initial pool, or if new souls are also created on-the-fly as needed. I found passages in _Teckla_ about reincarnation that may be appropriate for this discussion. It mentions that: The Halls of Judgment is a place for Dragaeran souls and in order to arrive there, they must be sent over the Falls, and, "unless some god especially liked or disliked the guy, he'd take his place as part of a thriving community of dead persons." And if they're not brought over the Falls: "Well, if he was killed with a Morganti dagger, the issue was settled. Or, if he'd worked out some arrangement with his favorite god, then the god had the pleasure of doing anything he wanted with the soul. Other than that, he'd be reincarnated." As for reincarnation: "...I remember that an unborn child exerts a kind of mystical pull and will draw in the soul most suited to it. If no soul is appropriate, there will be no birth. If there is no child appropriate to a soul, the soul waits in a place that the necromancers call 'The Plane of Waiting Souls' because they aren't very imaginative." Of course, this doesn't tell us what the initial pool was like, or if new souls are created, but there is a place where they hang out and wait for a new body. (The above passages, BTW, were told to Vlad by Aliera, and we all know how good Vlad's memory is.:) Just thought I'd add in what I'd just read. :) Chris (Yeah, rereading Tekla. I felt like being depressed.:) "Blind man's night is music to the deaf, and everyone has *two* paths, not one, whence comes tragedy and comedy, forsooth and damn straight, son." - "The Gypsy" - Brust & Lindholm From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Thu Feb 26 12:43:55 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 12:43:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation Message-ID: <200402262043.i1QKhtg20150@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Noam Izenberg wrote: > If time is meaningless in that frame, then so is "destruction" of a > soul (and creation of one, I might add). That's a deus ex copout, > however, by which I mean "The Gods work in Mysterious Ways > Period" can be used to avoid answering the question. > Of course, an author's entitled to say that the metaphysics of his > world is beyond our ken. Well, considering the gods have debates between themselves on the nature of where the Paths of the Dead lie in relation to the Halls and Dragaera, I can easily see them having a debate over where souls come from. Given that, the metaphysics of Dragaera may be beyond the god's ken....:) We know the gods sift souls, we've not been told if they know any more about them than necromancers and Athyra wizards. I wouldn't put it past 'em to use the souls, but not know much about them. Chris "Life is the nightmare that leaves its mark upon you in order to prove that it is, in fact, real." -Thomas Ligotti- 'The Sect of the Idiot' From noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu Thu Feb 26 12:57:52 2004 From: noam.izenberg at jhuapl.edu (Noam Izenberg) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 15:57:52 -0500 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: <200402262043.i1QKhtg20150@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> References: <200402262043.i1QKhtg20150@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Message-ID: <713D5AD7-689E-11D8-92F2-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> On Feb 26, 2004, at 3:43 PM, Chris Olson - SunPS wrote: > Noam Izenberg wrote: >> Of course, an author's entitled to say that the metaphysics of his >> world is beyond our ken. > > Well, considering the gods have debates between > themselves on the nature of where the Paths of > the Dead lie in relation to the Halls and Dragaera, > I can easily see them having a debate over where > souls come from. Given that, the metaphysics > of Dragaera may be beyond the god's ken....:) > > We know the gods sift souls, we've not been told > if they know any more about them than necromancers > and Athyra wizards. > > I wouldn't put it past 'em to use the souls, but > not know much about them. I can definitely see that possibility. Thanks Chris, for the Teckla references and the points above. The Gods of Dragaera feel Olympian in scope/power (or maybe even a little less than that), potent, and with weaker and stronger spheres of influence, but far from omnipotent - challengeable by the Jenoine, who are not described as deities. Could the Jenoine be analogized with the Titans? Being Zero Man (Noam Izenberg's nighttime superhero avocation) From mneme at io.com Thu Feb 26 13:05:35 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 15:05:35 -0600 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: <200402262043.i1QKhtg20150@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> References: <200402262043.i1QKhtg20150@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Message-ID: <16446.24479.991410.723058@fnord.io.com> Chris Olson - SunPS writes: >Well, considering the gods have debates between >themselves on the nature of where the Paths of >the Dead lie in relation to the Halls and Dragaera, Where's the textev? The only time we've seen first-hand view of the gods was, IIRC, in Taltos. [no, I don't think Paarfi counts] -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From usagigoya at hotmail.com Thu Feb 26 13:17:39 2004 From: usagigoya at hotmail.com (Steve Hubbell) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 21:17:39 +0000 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) Message-ID: Didn't Morrolan have a wizard's staff in Issola? >From: "Howard Brazee" >To: "Dragaera (E-mail)" >Subject: RE: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) >Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 19:13:34 -0700 > > > > >Black is the color of sorcery. Blackwand also replaced Morrolans wizards >staff. >Blackwand is Morrolans familiar. I'd say that Blackwand is extra deadly in >the >arts of sorcerous battle. [insert your own julian fries joke here] > > >Black is Morrlan's color. Everything he does is black. > > _________________________________________________________________ Stay informed on Election 2004 and the race to Super Tuesday. http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx From warlord at dragon.com Thu Feb 26 13:31:02 2004 From: warlord at dragon.com (Warlord) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 16:31:02 -0500 Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Found this browsing through boingboing. I was amused. Just passing it along. Page link is http://www.boingboing.net/ W Elmore Leonard's ten rule for writers. Brilliant. 10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue. (this is my third link from Teresa Nielsen Hayden in one day, which has to be some kind of record) Link (via Making Light) posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:09:25 PM From Gaertk at aol.com Thu Feb 26 14:08:11 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 17:08:11 -0500 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation Message-ID: <2A45DD65.5101DF22.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/26/2004 4:05:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, Joshua Kronengold writes: > Chris Olson - SunPS writes: >> Well, considering the gods have debates between >> themselves on the nature of where the Paths of >> the Dead lie in relation to the Halls and Dragaera, > > Where's the textev? _Taltos_, very beginning of chapter 10 (pg 101 mmpb). I couldn't find the bit where Vlad mentions the Plane of Waiting Souls. --KG From dd-b at dd-b.net Thu Feb 26 14:18:15 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 16:18:15 -0600 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: <0FF7F314-689A-11D8-92F2-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> (Noam Izenberg's message of "Thu, 26 Feb 2004 15:26:30 -0500") References: <95DE5B9A-685D-11D8-BC0D-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <0FF7F314-689A-11D8-92F2-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: Noam Izenberg writes: > On Feb 26, 2004, at 3:00 PM, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > >> Noam Izenberg writes: >> >>> The talk about what exactly does a Morganti weapon >>> (whether or not Blackwand is typical) >> >> (cutting your off in the middle of a sentence) >> >> Stop right there! To suggest that a *great weapon* is typical of >> Morganti weapons is *clearly wrong*. > > I fought my contrarian impulse, but lost; Y'all get to suffer. > > I have no argument that Blackwand is an ordinary Morganti blade. > However, there must be aspects of similarity between even that > Great Weapon and a 'normal' Morganti, or else, Blackwand would > not be _called_ Morganti. I therefore suggest that while Blackwand > may indeed be much more, it almost _must_ have some "typical" > Morganti features. We know they have in common the ability to destroy ("eat") a soul. Since that's *the* defining characteristic of Morganti blades, it seems to make sense to call Blackwand Morganti. And in fact we know, from the creation of Godslayer, that a Morganti blade *can be* upgraded to being a Great Weapon. So the connection may indeed be very close -- possibly *all* great weapons are upgraded Morganti weapons. I'm not sure we can project any *other* "typical Morganti features" onto Great Weapons, though; that one is such a big deal that it overshadows everything else, and is enough on its own to justify the connection. >>> In the specific metaphysics of this world, _are_ souls >>> destructible? Must there therefore also be a source of >>> souls? What are the 'laws' of soul birth, migration, and >>> (possible) death? >> >> Yes; ordinary morganti weapons destroy them. > > Says Vlad. Do we trust his perspective here? Morrolan's cut off > description of Blackwand could be read to imply otherwise. Here > is where the similarities and differeneces between Blackwand and > a typical Morganti migh be very important indeed. Most of what we see is from Vlad's perspective, but it seems to me that Morganti killings are particularly serious precisely because they destory the soul. That comes up often enough, and is important enough in different contexts, that it seems very unlikely that Vlad is completely mistaken about it. Note that I said "can" as the defining point. So far as Vlad knows, ordinary Morganti blades *always* destroy the soul. Blackwand can apparently hold itself in check if desired, though. >> Given that time isn't the same thing to the gods as it is to us, these >> questions may be meaningless in the frame in which souls are handled. > > If time is meaningless in that frame, then so is "destruction" of a > soul (and creation of one, I might add). That's a deus ex copout, > however, by which I mean "The Gods work in Mysterious Ways > Period" can be used to avoid answering the question. > Of course, an author's entitled to say that the metaphysics of his > world is beyond our ken. It wouldn't bother me _too_ much for > certain things, though it would for things upon which the plot or > major story elements relied. I don't see how that follows. The gods may see time as we see space -- a dimension they can move through at will. If so, they could perfectly well distinguish a soul which occupied all time from a soul which occupied only part of time (due to having been destroyed by a Morganti blade), just as we distinguish a carpet that covers the whole floor from one that covers only half the floor. But then, I never said *time* was meaningless; I merely said the gods saw it differently, making the *question* meaningless in their frame. And the idea of time being seen by the gods differently is quite clearly present in the Dragaera books, it's not something I'm trying to impose on them. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Thu Feb 26 14:37:55 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 14:37:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: References: <95DE5B9A-685D-11D8-BC0D-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> <0FF7F314-689A-11D8-92F2-000A95CFD7A0@jhuapl.edu> Message-ID: On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > We know they have in common the ability to destroy ("eat") a soul. > Since that's *the* defining characteristic of Morganti blades I don't know if we have authoritative evidence for either of these assertions. I think the former is likely true but it doesn't imply the latter. For all we know (pace Kragar fans) the eating feature may be ancillary. I'm thinking about chainsaws, for example. From Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM Thu Feb 26 15:36:55 2004 From: Chrisf.Olson at Sun.COM (Chris Olson - SunPS) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 15:36:55 -0800 (PST) Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation Message-ID: <200402262336.i1QNatg08720@phys-hanwk14-1.ebay.sun.com> Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > I couldn't find the bit where Vlad mentions the Plane of > Waiting Souls. _Teckla_, page 140 of the Ace edition. The other passages were from pages 139 and 140. :) Chris "I feel if a person can't communicate, the very least they can do is shut up." ~ Tom Lehrer ~ From bryann at bryann.net Thu Feb 26 15:30:20 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 17:30:20 -0600 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > We know they have in common the ability to destroy ("eat") a soul. > Since that's *the* defining characteristic of Morganti blades, it > seems to make sense to call Blackwand Morganti. [...] > I'm not sure we can project any *other* "typical Morganti features" > onto Great Weapons, though; that one is such a big deal that it > overshadows everything else, and is enough on its own to justify the > connection. One other thing they both have in common: they "assault the mind" when unsheathed (and to a lesser extent when sheathed). > >>> In the specific metaphysics of this world, _are_ souls > >>> destructible? [...] > >> Yes; ordinary morganti weapons destroy them. > > > > Says Vlad. Do we trust his perspective here? Morrolan's cut off > > description of Blackwand could be read to imply otherwise. Here > > is where the similarities and differeneces between Blackwand and > > a typical Morganti migh be very important indeed. > > Most of what we see is from Vlad's perspective, but it seems to me > that Morganti killings are particularly serious precisely because they > destory the soul. That comes up often enough, and is important enough > in different contexts, that it seems very unlikely that Vlad is > completely mistaken about it. I think the souls are taken, even by "ordinary" morganti weapons. Taken and sent elsewhere, or taken and consumned by the weapon, I'm not sure. In Issola, the morganti weapon didn't "destroy" the soul in the act of killing the victim, it pulled the soul into itself: Issola, hardcover, pg 241 "[SPOILER] was inside the dagger, somewhere, somehow, and I was going to go get [SPOILER] or... well, I was going to go get [SPOILER]." We don't know what the weapon would have done with the soul if Vlad hadn't followed it, but it didn't simply destroy the soul in the act of killing its victim. Bryan From Gaertk at aol.com Thu Feb 26 16:25:04 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 19:25:04 -0500 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation Message-ID: <1D6420DE.3798DC70.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/26/2004 6:30:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Bryan Newell" writes: >> We know they have in common the ability to destroy ("eat") >> a soul. Since that's *the* defining characteristic of >> Morganti blades, it seems to make sense to call Blackwand >> Morganti. > [...] > > I think the souls are taken, even by "ordinary" morganti > weapons. > > Taken and sent elsewhere, or taken and consumned by the > weapon, I'm not sure. > > In Issola, the morganti weapon didn't "destroy" the soul in > the act of killing the victim, it pulled the soul into > itself: [snip] > We don't know what the weapon would have done with the soul > if Vlad hadn't followed it, but it didn't simply destroy > the soul in the act of killing its victim. The soul may not have been destroyed, but it did seem to be a shredded. [And this is almost certainly a special case.] --KG From Gaertk at aol.com Thu Feb 26 16:21:20 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 19:21:20 -0500 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation Message-ID: <15BF512E.4D944E80.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/26/2004 6:36:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, Chris Olson - SunPS writes: > Gaertk at aol.com wrote: >> I couldn't find the bit where Vlad mentions the Plane of >> Waiting Souls. > > _Teckla_, page 140 of the Ace edition. > > The other passages were from pages 139 and 140. No wonder I couldn't find it anywhere in _Taltos_ :) [It's in the middle of chapter 11 for those of you using the omnibus.] Looking over that section, my eye was caught by: "Well, if he was killed with a Morganti dagger, the issue was settled." What about Morganti swords? Vlad has seen more than a few by this time (including two in the books published before _Teckla_). This could be a translation issue, of course. --KG From bryann at bryann.net Thu Feb 26 16:34:28 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:34:28 -0600 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: <1D6420DE.3798DC70.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: > > We don't know what the weapon would have done with the soul > > if Vlad hadn't followed it, but it didn't simply destroy > > the soul in the act of killing its victim. > > The soul may not have been destroyed, but it did seem to be a > shredded. [And this is almost certainly a special case.] I think it was the presence of Vlad and Spellbreaker that made the case "special", not the dagger. In other words, I think Vlad "interrupted" the dagger from doing what morganti weapons usually do, and that's when things became interesting. Bryan From ucblockhead at ucblockhead.org Thu Feb 26 16:40:01 2004 From: ucblockhead at ucblockhead.org (Ucblo C. Khead) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 16:40:01 -0800 Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <403E91E1.6080403@ucblockhead.org> Warlord wrote: >Found this browsing through boingboing. I was amused. >Just passing it along. Page link is http://www.boingboing.net/ > >W > > > > > > >Elmore Leonard's ten rule for writers. Brilliant. > >10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. > >A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: >thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the >writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking >another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the >reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you >don't skip dialogue. > >(this is my third link from Teresa Nielsen Hayden in one day, which has to >be some kind of record) Link (via Making Light) posted by Cory Doctorow at >10:09:25 PM > > > > Which implies that Leonard should have left out rules 1-9. Steve From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Thu Feb 26 16:50:46 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 16:50:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: a great ten rule Message-ID: <200402270050.i1R0okK10107@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> From: "Warlord" >Found this browsing through boingboing. I was amused. >Just passing it along. Page link is http://www.boingboing.net/ [snip] >(this is my third link from Teresa Nielsen Hayden in one day, which has to >be some kind of record) Link (via Making Light) posted by Cory Doctorow at >10:09:25 PM I really don't understand why everyone on the net doesn't follow Making Light religiously. Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a goddess (or at least an extremely hoopy frood, take your pick). -- David Goldfarb |"My society worries about people getting their goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | hands on illegal drugs but they'll sell any goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | idiot a bag of concrete." | -- Teresa Nielsen Hayden From howard at brazee.net Thu Feb 26 17:52:11 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:52:11 -0700 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001201c3fcd4$51530f10$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Bryan Newell wrote: > > In Issola, the morganti weapon didn't "destroy" the soul in the act of > killing the victim, it pulled the soul into itself: This isn't the first instance we have come across of a great weapon drawing a soul into itself. The other time, it let the soul out again later. I wonder what it was like. From howard at brazee.net Thu Feb 26 17:54:36 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:54:36 -0700 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001301c3fcd4$a7cf68c0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > Note that I said "can" as the defining point. So far as Vlad knows, > ordinary Morganti blades *always* destroy the soul. Blackwand can > apparently hold itself in check if desired, though. I suspect that the fear Vlad had the first time he went to a room of Morganti weapons wasn't psychological - there was some very real aura that his soul could feel. From howard at brazee.net Thu Feb 26 17:55:52 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:55:52 -0700 Subject: Morganti regret (Issola spoilers within) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <001401c3fcd4$d5792ae0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Steve Hubbell wrote: >> Black is the color of sorcery. Blackwand also replaced Morrolans >> wizards staff. Blackwand is Morrolans familiar. I'd say that >> Blackwand is extra deadly in the arts of sorcerous battle. [insert >> your own julian fries joke here] >> >> >> Black is Morrlan's color. Everything he does is black. >> > Didn't Morrolan have a wizard's staff in Issola? > Yep. It was black. From dd-b at dd-b.net Thu Feb 26 18:17:50 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 20:17:50 -0600 Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: <200402270050.i1R0okK10107@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> (David Goldfarb's message of "Thu, 26 Feb 2004 16:50:46 -0800 (PST)") References: <200402270050.i1R0okK10107@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: David Goldfarb writes: > From: "Warlord" > >>Found this browsing through boingboing. I was amused. >>Just passing it along. Page link is http://www.boingboing.net/ > [snip] >>(this is my third link from Teresa Nielsen Hayden in one day, which has to >>be some kind of record) Link (via Making Light) posted by Cory Doctorow at >>10:09:25 PM > > I really don't understand why everyone on the net doesn't follow > Making Light religiously. Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a goddess > (or at least an extremely hoopy frood, take your pick). Unfortunately, she's taken to publishing primarily in her own weblog, and I just don't get out to read weblogs regularly. Or much of any other kind of web site. I go to web sites for more directed, specific, purposes. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From mneme at io.com Fri Feb 27 06:31:46 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 08:31:46 -0600 Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: References: <200402270050.i1R0okK10107@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <16447.21714.277609.497893@fnord.io.com> David Dyer-Bennet writes: >David Goldfarb writes: >> Making Light religiously. Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a goddess >> (or at least an extremely hoopy frood, take your pick). >Unfortunately, she's taken to publishing primarily in her own weblog, >and I just don't get out to read weblogs regularly. Or much of any >other kind of web site. I go to web sites for more directed, >specific, purposes. Hmm. Reminds me -- I should probably see if Making Light is being syndicated to LJ, or can be. I, too, you see, dislike checking websites regularly, which is why I make a concerted effort to make LJ the -only- website I need to check. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Fri Feb 27 08:05:40 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 08:05:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: <16447.21714.277609.497893@fnord.io.com> References: <200402270050.i1R0okK10107@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> <16447.21714.277609.497893@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Joshua Kronengold wrote: > I, too, you see, dislike checking websites regularly, which is why I > make a concerted effort to make LJ the -only- website I need to check. Those who care can check out RSS - a lot of blogs and news sources will ship their updates to you automatically. Look for "RSS feed" or something like that. http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/intro/ From mneme at io.com Fri Feb 27 08:35:09 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 10:35:09 -0600 Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: References: <200402270050.i1R0okK10107@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> <16447.21714.277609.497893@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: <16447.29117.471802.129810@fnord.io.com> Philip Hart writes: >On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Joshua Kronengold wrote: >> I, too, you see, dislike checking websites regularly, which is why I >> make a concerted effort to make LJ the -only- website I need to check. >Those who care can check out RSS - a lot of blogs and news sources >will ship their updates to you automatically. Look for "RSS feed" >or something like that. >http://www.webreference.com/authoring/languages/xml/rss/intro/ Yes -- one of the things I like about Livejournal is that (especially if you're a paid user) it's a decent RSS aggregator. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From dd-b at dd-b.net Fri Feb 27 09:03:53 2004 From: dd-b at dd-b.net (David Dyer-Bennet) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:03:53 -0600 Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: (Philip Hart's message of "Fri, 27 Feb 2004 08:05:40 -0800 (PST)") References: <200402270050.i1R0okK10107@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> <16447.21714.277609.497893@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: Philip Hart writes: > On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Joshua Kronengold wrote: > >> I, too, you see, dislike checking websites regularly, which is why I >> make a concerted effort to make LJ the -only- website I need to check. > > Those who care can check out RSS - a lot of blogs and news sources > will ship their updates to you automatically. Look for "RSS feed" > or something like that. And both the Nielsen Hayden's weblogs are available that way. -- David Dyer-Bennet, , RKBA: Photos: Snapshots: Dragaera/Steven Brust: From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Fri Feb 27 11:09:53 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:09:53 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: a great ten rule Message-ID: <200402271909.i1RJ9rv29656@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> From: Joshua Kronengold >Hmm. Reminds me -- I should probably see if Making Light is being >syndicated to LJ, or can be. I just looked, and there *is* a ...but all it has is the first couple of lines of text for each entry, accompanied by a hyperlink to the entry itself on nielsenhayden.com. You would get to read everything only on very short entries, and also you would miss out on the comment threads, which are often marvelous. I'm not sure why anyone would actually bother. -- David Goldfarb <*>|"To the general public "calories" are not units goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu |of measurement but evil creatures that live in goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu |tasty food and make people fat." | -- Bill Jennings on rec.arts.comics.misc From zarkon at illrepute.org Fri Feb 27 11:14:41 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 14:14:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: <200402271909.i1RJ9rv29656@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> References: <200402271909.i1RJ9rv29656@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, David Goldfarb wrote: @> >Hmm. Reminds me -- I should probably see if Making Light is being @> >syndicated to LJ, or can be. @> @> I just looked, and there *is* a @> ...but all it has is the first couple of lines of text for each entry, @> accompanied by a hyperlink to the entry itself on nielsenhayden.com. @> You would get to read everything only on very short entries, and also @> you would miss out on the comment threads, which are often marvelous. @> I'm not sure why anyone would actually bother. It informs you that an update has occurred, gives you some of the gist, and provides a link that takes you directly to it. This is the way a lot of the LJ syndications work, actually. It's still better than trying to keep up with thirty sites at once, because you a) don't have to check them when there aren't updates and b) end up right at the new material the vast majority of the time. From mneme at io.com Fri Feb 27 11:25:33 2004 From: mneme at io.com (Joshua Kronengold) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 13:25:33 -0600 Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: <200402271909.i1RJ9rv29656@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> References: <200402271909.i1RJ9rv29656@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <16447.39341.865725.113410@fnord.io.com> David Goldfarb writes: >From: Joshua Kronengold >>Hmm. Reminds me -- I should probably see if Making Light is being >>syndicated to LJ, or can be. >I just looked, and there *is* a Cool! >...but all it has is the first couple of lines of text for each entry, >accompanied by a hyperlink to the entry itself on nielsenhayden.com. Even cooler! >You would get to read everything only on very short entries, and also >you would miss out on the comment threads, which are often marvelous. >I'm not sure why anyone would actually bother. Because it lets you know when the site is updated, of course. If they were longer, you might be tempted to read the entire article on LJ, and then you -would- miss the comment threads; this way, you've got a notification (with a bit of topic) when she updates, and can then click and see the article at your leisure. This is also how I set up my unauthorized Megatokyo (a popular, and good webcomic) rss feed -- it just pulls the name of the strip and a link to the page where the strip is located, thus giving notification of when the site is updated without either messing with the creator's theoreticla rights or encouraging people to miss the ads and rants on the site itself. -- Joshua Kronengold (mneme at io.com) "I've been teaching |\ _,,,--,,_ ,) --^--him...to live, to breathe, to walk, to sample the /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;' /\\joy on each road, and the sorrow at each turning. |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\ /-\\\I'm sorry if I kept him out too late"--Vlad Taltos '---''(_/--' (_/-' From zarkon at illrepute.org Fri Feb 27 11:50:12 2004 From: zarkon at illrepute.org (John Klein) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 14:50:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: <16447.39341.865725.113410@fnord.io.com> References: <200402271909.i1RJ9rv29656@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> <16447.39341.865725.113410@fnord.io.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Joshua Kronengold wrote: @> This is also how I set up my unauthorized Megatokyo (a popular, and @> good webcomic) rss feed -- it just pulls the name of the strip and a @> link to the page where the strip is located, thus giving notification @> of when the site is updated without either messing with the creator's @> theoreticla rights or encouraging people to miss the ads and rants on @> the site itself. And Megatokyo is a good example of why this works. You're saving yourself significant effort if you're informed when it actually gets updated instead of having to check constantly on the off chance... From Gaertk at aol.com Fri Feb 27 13:32:17 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:32:17 -0500 Subject: Souls - Destruction and Creation Message-ID: <7884CE94.47D2CA25.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/26/2004 8:52:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Howard Brazee" writes: > Bryan Newell wrote: > >> >> In Issola, the morganti weapon didn't "destroy" the soul >> in the act of killing the victim, it pulled the soul into >> itself: > > This isn't the first instance we have come across of a > great weapon drawing a soul into itself. ?The other time, > it let the soul out again later. ? I wonder what it was > like. "It is an interesting perspective from in there." _Jhereg_, page 236. --KG From goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU Fri Feb 27 16:40:52 2004 From: goldfarb at OCF.Berkeley.EDU (David Goldfarb) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 16:40:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: OT: a great ten rule Message-ID: <200402280040.i1S0eq226285@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> From: John Klein >On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Joshua Kronengold wrote: > >@> This is also how I set up my unauthorized Megatokyo (a popular, and >@> good webcomic) rss feed -- it just pulls the name of the strip and a >@> link to the page where the strip is located, thus giving notification >@> of when the site is updated without either messing with the creator's >@> theoreticla rights or encouraging people to miss the ads and rants on >@> the site itself. > >And Megatokyo is a good example of why this works. You're saving yourself >significant effort if you're informed when it actually gets updated >instead of having to check constantly on the off chance... OK, I can understand that. In the case of Making Light, while there aren't new entries every day, there's a thriving community in the comment threads that is worth checking daily. But I can see how that would be useful for something like the "Hello Cthulhu" web-strip or Steve's own blog. -- David Goldfarb <*>|"Feeling smug about one's opinions is the very goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | lifeblood of the Net." goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Dawn Friedman From casey at the-bat.net Sat Feb 28 17:46:43 2004 From: casey at the-bat.net (Casey Rousseau) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 20:46:43 -0500 Subject: Unnerving Message-ID: <000201c3fe65$e26c0d70$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> OK, I have to admit it, I'm suffering withdrawal. It's been 24 hours without any activity. I must post. I thought for a bit that perhaps my DNS changes had propogated to my ISP, but hadn't yet gotten to dd-b's. But no, unless the automatic archive is also broken we have all taken the day off. And yet I have little relevant to say. Ping. Casey From jhereg69 at earthlink.net Sat Feb 28 20:01:02 2004 From: jhereg69 at earthlink.net (Jose Marquez) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 23:01:02 -0500 Subject: Unnerving In-Reply-To: <000201c3fe65$e26c0d70$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> References: <000201c3fe65$e26c0d70$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> Message-ID: <404163FE.6080900@earthlink.net> Casey Rousseau wrote: >OK, I have to admit it, I'm suffering withdrawal. It's been 24 hours >without any activity. I must post. I thought for a bit that perhaps my DNS >changes had propogated to my ISP, but hadn't yet gotten to dd-b's. But no, >unless the automatic archive is also broken we have all taken the day off. > >And yet I have little relevant to say. > >Ping. > > This message will land in my inbox an hour after it appears in the archives. Many on the list probably won't even see it. And yet, I write to say... Pong. Or we could go back to arguing the finer points of Morganti weapons (hee). Mild Issola spoilers follow: Personally, I think that the method of Godslayer's rebirth is particular to that weapon, and thus not applicable to pararectal discussion of how the other Great Weapons have come about. While it seems that all of the Great Weapons we've met have distinct personalities, I believe that only Godslayer was rendered down to its components by the fearful gods, and thus was the only weapon that required a fresh soul to begin its life anew. I admit that Blackwand, Pathfinder and Iceflame may have acquired a fresh soul off-stage, as it were. In fact, now that I think about it, when Aliera got Pathfinder, it didn't eat a fresh soul, BUT we know that Barrit defied the Empire and made it stick, which suggests that Pathfinder was already ready to go when he had it... I don't know, maybe I just don't want to see Tazendra be eaten by Blackwand. And who knows how Iceflame came about. I doubt that it sprang fully formed from Sethra's, uh, hip. Actually, it would be very interesting to find out how the Serioli make Great Weapons and Morganti weapons in general. Jose -- Jose Marquez \ Cthulhu 2004 jhereg69 at earthlink.net \ Why vote for http://home.earthlink.net/~jhereg69 \ the lesser evil? From davids at kithrup.com Sat Feb 28 22:57:39 2004 From: davids at kithrup.com (David Silberstein) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 22:57:39 -0800 (PST) Subject: Word of the day Message-ID: One of the nifty thing about library sales is that you can pick up reference books - you know, the ones you're usually not allowed to take out - for practically nothing. This one is /The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins/, by Robert Hedrickson. It's a great one for just browsing through and reading up on this and that. It's not as comprehensive as a good dictionary, but it is pretty fun. Anyway: boss. Early Americans, independent and democratic, never liked the word "master" with all its aristocratic associations. Late in the 18th century they adopted the Dutch word /baas/ meaning the same thing, and were soon spelling it /boss/. By as early as 1838 /boss/ had achieved common usage and writers as prominent as James Fenimore Cooper were condemning it as a barbaric vulgarization of the language. Some people think that /boss/ as an adjective meaning the best, the greatest, is recent teenage slang, but the word has been used in the same sense since the mid-19th century. From bryann at bryann.net Sat Feb 28 23:34:13 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 01:34:13 -0600 Subject: Unnerving In-Reply-To: <000201c3fe65$e26c0d70$7b02a8c0@KCRINSP8200> Message-ID: > OK, I have to admit it, I'm suffering withdrawal. It's been 24 hours > without any activity. I'm game. But don't read this email unless you've read all the Dragaeran novels, as there are spoilers for most of them below. 1. Why hasn't any action been taken against Paarfi by the Empire for publishing to the masses how to defeat the Orb? Does this provide a more sinister motive for the "Campaign to Discredit Paarfi"? 2. Should Vlad be insulted that the Imperial Title he was granted in "Phoenix" was for Szurke, which means "commonplace" or "drab" in Hungar--err, I mean, Fenarian? 3. Why does Noish-pa revere Verra, the goddess of Elder Sorcery, instead of her sister Moranthe, the goddess of Witchcraft? 4. When the Empire was founded, Kieron was, well, Kieron, Vlad was Dolivar, but who was Aliera? Aliera says she was a Shaman, and in "Issola" we hear that Drien was a Shaman/Warrior contemporary of Kieron's, and may or may not have had a sex change, so was Aliera Drien? 5. Maybe you all can help me out with my mapping project. On page 290 of the paperback "The Paths of the Death", the following exchange occurs: Morrolan: ... we are bound for my ancestral homelands, a county called Southmoor. Miska: Southmoor? Well, but that is near Adrilankha, is it not? Teldra: Perhaps fifty leagues from Covered Springs, in the southwest corner. In the southwest corner? What the heck does that mean? Is this just Paarfi getting tired of saying "to the southwest", so he mixes it up by saying "in the southwest corner," using "corner" the way we might use "quadrant"? If not, then in the southwest corner of _what_? 6. Is Grita Ibronka's (much) older sister? Consider the following: FHYA pg 66 - [Grita] was a product of the House of Dzur [and] the House of Tsalmoth. [She] was one of those unfortunates who, being the product of two houses, belong to none. FHYA pg 393 through 397 - Dunaan: You give orders to [Sennya, Dzur Heir and Ibronka's mother]? ... How can this be? Greycat: Does it matter? She'll do what she is told ... Dunaan: Yet, I cannot believe-- Greycat: Pah! It is easy to control a Dzurlord--no one is more sensitive to appearances; threaten to publicly shame one and he is yours. [...] Grita: I heard. Greycat: And? Grita: There are times when I am ashamed to know you. Greycat: How, you refer to my plan to appease the Jhereg? Grita: No. Greycat: Then you refer-- Grita: Yes. Greycat: I had not known you cared. Grita: I do not. Greycat: Well, then? Grita: Nevertheless, that you would use-- Greycat: I have not asked for your opinion. [...] Greycat: Then, I believe, there is nothing more to be said. Grita: On the contrary, there is a great deal to be said, but I do not believe we will say any of it. I have no wish to, at all events. Have you? [Greycat walks out on her.] FHYA pg 516 - "Who?" said Tazendra. "Who is your mother?" Grita did not speak. POTD pg 139 - "I have made many errors in my life," [Sennya] admitted to herself. "I have been foolish, and self-indulgent, and irresponsible, and even, on one occasion, weak. Yet I still have Ibronka ... Perhaps the gods have forgiven me my lapse, for they have graced me with a daughter for--well, the one who is lost. It must have been a gift of the gods, for ... I thought myself too old to have a child." 7. Who is Sethra referring to on page 198 of "Issola": "I am the only Lavode left. Well, there's one other, but he isn't ready yet." 8. On pages 141 and 142 of "Issola," Vlad turns to take a step towards Aliera and Morrolan, who have just appeared in his Jenoine prison. As he begins his step, he suddenly has a "mystical experience". This "experience" consists of a bunch of statements that break off strangely and are all mixed together. Or, upon further analysis, it consists of 3 separate and distinct experiences, which are jumbled up in a clear pattern. I'm calling each of these an Experience, and the pattern goes: I took a step forward, and-- --Experience 1, line 1-- --Experience 2, line 1-- --Experience 3, line 1-- ... --Experience 1, line 11. --Experience 2, line 11. --Experience 3, line 11. Pay particular attention to Experience 2, which implies that Vlad is in two places at once, and moreover that one of those places is inside of Spellbreaker. Experience 1: I took a step forward, and-- --as my footstep faded, I could almost hear-- --voices whispering in the silence, with the silence, not disturbing it-- --leaving perception, without the awareness of whence it sprang except-- --that it came from outside of self, if such a distinction is valid without time or place to hang it from, and the voices-- --came with eyes, and ears, and other things that-- --gave me the feeling that I was being studied, scanned, analyzed, and ultimately-- --discarded, and permitted-- --to stop, or resume-- --the interrupted pace, the walk, the step, which in turn permitted-- --a junction of thought and a resonance of experience, so that I managed, or thought I managed, or almost managed-- --to make contact, once more, with my familiar familiar. Experience 2: I took a step forward, and-- --an infinitely extended moment, nothing happens, taking forever, but much too fast-- --a foot almost descending, simultaneously in one place and another--occupying two places at once, but that's what movement is all about-- --all life is movement, which is to be here and not here and the same time, or here and there simultaneously, or to deny time, or to deny place-- --is to be, in fact, nowhere, and nowhere is-- --everywhere is here and there and there ought to be a way-- --to seize control, or least to act, or at the very least to make a decision-- --to be holding a chain of gold light, in my mind if nowhere else, so that in and through the shield of swirling gold which suddenly-- --seemed to me to be a place, not a thing, that I could-- --enter into and go through and be changed by-- --spinning corridors of gold that were within and without and then through once more, leaving me-- --somewhere real at last. Experience 3: I took a step forward, and-- --was instantly aware-- --that Loiosh was no longer with me. Even before-- --I realized that my surroundings had changed, that I was uncertain where I was, that-- --Teldra and Aliera and Morrolan had cross-stepped while I lunged, I knew-- --that I was out of touch with my familiar and it-- --had been years since I had come so-- --close to panic-- --but that, like so much else, is self-defeating, so I-- --tried not to think about it, but trust in him and me, and just do-- --and I guess it worked because what was before me became behind me, and here became there, which was all right, because I-- was back. He then returns to consciousness, and discovers his little "single step" took about 8 hours of "real time" and ended with him lying face-down on the floor. Is that the same as "being in two places at the same time," which Sethra explained is what makes a god a god? Is Vlad a god, or was he a god for that single step? He appears to have had three distinct experiences simultaneously. Maybe this is a pre-Godslayer hint at HOW Godslayer can kill a god (by making its user a god, in at least some sense). 9. During Teckla Reigns, the Empire is referred to as a Republic (search for "Republic" on the Booksearch for text--it's mentioned in a number of places, mostly "The Phoenix Guards" and "Five Hundred Years After")? On page 275 of "The Book of Taltos (Phoenix)", Verra says, "Kelly has his hands on the truth about the way a society works, about where the power is, and the cause of the injustice he sees. But it is truth for another time and another place [and] has no such strength in the Empire. Perhaps in ten thousand years, or a hundred thousand, but not now." Has she forgotten the Teckla Republics? Or is that what she's referring to by "another time and another place" "in ten thousand years, or a hundred thousand"? The "another place" makes me think she is talking about somewhere BESIDES Dragaera (wherever she came from, or the "small invisible lights" the Easterners came from), which again begs the question, what about Teckla Republics? Maybe what Kelly wants isn't the same as a Teckla Republic? 10. In "The Lord of Castle Black", on page 318, Clari has a conversation with "a certain Dragonlord of middle years distinguished by a large build, and a bright, animated face beneath a head full of unusually fair hair" who wonders for whom he is a soldier. He is sitting in a chair that "collapses by removing this pin and then pushing here" and says, "I did some garrison duty for [Morrolan's] father before the Interregnum" and further that "I will be able to discover which army I am in, and, if I am not then in Morrolan's service, I can enter it again." He likes the soldier's life, and doesn't want to be promoted. In "Dragon", on page 183, Vlad sees a soldier named Dortmond, who's "been in the company for most of two hundred years" and has a chair that "collapses". He is described as "a very large man, of middle years, with long hair and good features for a Dragon" and is sitting in "a canvas-and-wood chair, complete with back." On page 214 of "Dragon", Dortmond goes on to say he's not looking for a promotion. Is this the same character? Almost 250 years had passed, but for a Dragaeran, he might still be considered "middle aged", and the chair seems rather specific, as is the size of the man himself, and his lack of desire for a promotion. Well, really, that might describe half the professional soldiers out there, but the passage in LOCB is odd, and feels a bit out of place, almost like the scene was worked in for a reason not readily apparent. 11. Having recently watched the first four seasons of "The Sopranos" back-to-back-to-back-to-back, as it were, I find myself wondering: Where are the strip clubs in Adrilankha? Maybe strip clubs only exist where looking is legal, but touching is not, and in places where touching is legal, why would you pay just to look? 12. I intended to do 17 of these, but I find that it's now 1:30am CST, and I grow weary. Also, this email has grown quite long enough, I think, so enjoy! Bryan Newell Tomorrow my name is Oblivion. Two eyes, two ohs, you believe in the end? From howard at brazee.net Sun Feb 29 08:20:26 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 09:20:26 -0700 Subject: Word of the day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000e01c3fedf$f1287b30$b07ba8c0@Dad133> David Silberstein wrote: ... > Anyway: > > boss. Early Americans, independent and democratic, never liked > the word "master" with all its aristocratic associations. Late > in the 18th century they adopted the Dutch word /baas/ meaning > the same thing, and were soon spelling it /boss/. By as early > as 1838 /boss/ had achieved common usage and writers as > prominent as James Fenimore Cooper were condemning it as a > barbaric vulgarization of the language. Some people think that > /boss/ as an adjective meaning the best, the greatest, is > recent teenage slang, but the word has been used in the same > sense since the mid-19th century. Which is why Mark Twain made such a big deal of the word in _A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court_. From howard at brazee.net Sun Feb 29 08:29:54 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 09:29:54 -0700 Subject: Unnerving In-Reply-To: <404163FE.6080900@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <001201c3fee1$43abb8d0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Jose Marquez wrote: > I admit that Blackwand, > Pathfinder and Iceflame may have acquired > a fresh soul off-stage, as it were. In fact, now that I think about > it, when Aliera got Pathfinder, it didn't eat a fresh soul, BUT we > know that Barrit defied the Empire and made it stick, which suggests > that Pathfinder was already ready to go when he had it... I don't > know, maybe I just don't want to see Tazendra be eaten by Blackwand. > And who knows how Iceflame came about. I doubt that it sprang fully > formed from Sethra's, uh, hip. Actually, it would be very interesting > to find out > how the Serioli make Great Weapons and Morganti weapons in general. > > Jose We don't know much about the origins of Great Weapons. Maybe they all were created by different means. Possibilities: 1. The Serioli just made Morganti weapons - Great Weapons was an enhancement they didn't understand. 2. Maybe the story about why they created Morganti weapons was not quite accurate - what they REALLY were interested in was Great Weapons, but all they could do was create receptacles for Great Weapons. They have reason to wish that powerful beings get out of their world - and they have the ability to predict the future, so they may be simply setting things up for the future they want. 3. No two Great Weapons are alike (my assumption). They aren't alike because they were created differently. My question: What did the previous owner(s) think Spellbreaker was and would be used for? What did Sethra think? Why did she say it should be named? Maybe she had some prescience that it would one day HAVE a name. From Gaertk at aol.com Sun Feb 29 09:09:37 2004 From: Gaertk at aol.com (Gaertk at aol.com) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 12:09:37 -0500 Subject: Questions and Spoilers (was: Unnerving) Message-ID: <5E38B6EC.394BC79D.00048EA6@aol.com> In a message dated 2/29/2004 2:34:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Bryan Newell" writes: > But don't read this email unless you've read all the > Dragaeran novels, as there are spoilers for most of them > below. > > > > > > > > 1. Why hasn't any action been taken against Paarfi by the > Empire for publishing to the masses how to defeat the Orb? Do you really believe that it's trivially easy to summon unimaginable amounts of sorcerous power without using the Orb or purple stones or anything? And I'm sure it's just coincidence that this happened at the same time Adron lost control of his huge Elder Sorcery spell. > 2. Should Vlad be insulted that the Imperial Title he was > granted in "Phoenix" was for Szurke, which means > "commonplace" or "drab" in Hungar--err, I mean, Fenarian? He probably considers it yet another inside joke. > 5. Maybe you all can help me out with my mapping project. >?On page 290 of the paperback "The Paths of the Death", the > following exchange occurs: > > Morrolan: ?... we are bound for my ancestral homelands, a > county called Southmoor. > Miska: ?Southmoor? ?Well, but that is near Adrilankha, is > it not? > Teldra: Perhaps fifty leagues from Covered Springs, in the > southwest corner. > > In the southwest corner? ?What the heck does that mean? ?Is > this just Paarfi getting tired of saying "to the > southwest", so he mixes it up by saying "in the southwest > corner," using "corner" the way we might use "quadrant"? >?If not, then in the southwest corner of _what_? The Empire? Are there any other references to Covered Springs? > 7. Who is Sethra referring to on page 198 of "Issola": "I > am the only Lavode left. ?Well, there's one other, but he > isn't ready yet." First guess: VN. Of course, Sethra is trying to conceal this person's identity, so she may have said "gya" instead of "he" which allows other possibilities (T, SiG). --KG From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 29 10:14:03 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 12:14:03 -0600 Subject: Questions and Spoilers (was: Unnerving) In-Reply-To: <5E38B6EC.394BC79D.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: > > But don't read this email unless you've read all the > > Dragaeran novels, as there are spoilers for most of them > > below. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 1. Why hasn't any action been taken against Paarfi by the > > Empire for publishing to the masses how to defeat the Orb? > > Do you really believe that it's trivially easy to summon > unimaginable amounts of sorcerous power without using the Orb > or purple stones or anything? And I'm sure it's just > coincidence that this happened at the same time Adron lost > control of his huge Elder Sorcery spell. Cariss, the woman who made this Elder Sorcery spell for Mario, is described on pg 460 as having "the round, pleasant face of a Teckla, save for the excessively dark eyebrows and large nose. She wore the grey and black of the House of Jhereg." She goes on to say, "There is no limit to the amount of power available, only to the amount one person can control. When the energy isn't doing anything, it need not be controlled." But how can SHE summon amorphia? Book of Jhereg, pg 81 - Vlad: And Morrolan doesn't have the skill to create amorphia? Poor fellow. How can he live without it? Aliera: It isn't a skill one can learn. It goes back to genes gain. So far as I know, it is only the e'Kieron line of the House of the Dragon that holds the ability. The Lord of Castle Black, pg 391 - [Morrolan] has not the bloodlines to use [Elder Sorcery] fully. So, it seems this Jhereg Sorceress had e'Kieron blood in her somewhere. I think I see your point now. Just because we've met at least four characters who could do this (Vlad, Aliera, Cariss, and Kieron (although Aliera says she doesn't think Kieron ever summoned it)), I realize now I have a skewed view of how RARE it is to be able to do this. I wonder if Sethra can summon amorphia? And surely Kieron had lots and lots of descendants, although Adron, Aliera, and Cariss are the only three I can think of off the top of my head. > > 5. Maybe you all can help me out with my mapping project. > >?On page 290 of the paperback "The Paths of the Death", the > > following exchange occurs: > > > > Morrolan: ?... we are bound for my ancestral homelands, a > > county called Southmoor. > > Miska: ?Southmoor? ?Well, but that is near Adrilankha, is > > it not? > > Teldra: Perhaps fifty leagues from Covered Springs, in the > > southwest corner. > > > > In the southwest corner? ?What the heck does that mean? ?Is > > this just Paarfi getting tired of saying "to the > > southwest", so he mixes it up by saying "in the southwest > > corner," using "corner" the way we might use "quadrant"? > >?If not, then in the southwest corner of _what_? > > The Empire? > > Are there any other references to Covered Springs? Not that I could find, and Southmoor is in the Southeast portion of the Empire, being around 200 miles east of Adrilankha, which is on the southern coast. > > 7. Who is Sethra referring to on page 198 of "Issola": "I > > am the only Lavode left. ?Well, there's one other, but he > > isn't ready yet." > > First guess: VN. Of course, Sethra is trying to conceal this > person's identity, so she may have said "gya" instead of "he" > which allows other possibilities (T, SiG). Now that's a fascinating suggestion... an Easterner Lavode... It likes me. Bryan From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sun Feb 29 16:49:51 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:49:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: point about _Dragon_ In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On pg 15 (ppb) of _Dragon_ Vlad describes having related the events of _Taltos_, which occurred "just days before", to a box with ears. Somewhere else we learn someone convinced him his stories would never get back to anyone involved. I found it rather difficult to suspend my disbelief that V would confide to a stranger the histories of the Vladiad. It now strikes me as rather odd that the stranger in question would know to question V after _Taltos_ - before he'd been rather unusual but (as far as we know) hardly noteworthy to anyone except Kiera. Hmm. From kynigos at comcast.net Sat Feb 28 12:36:41 2004 From: kynigos at comcast.net (Orion Kynigos) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 12:36:41 -0800 Subject: OT: a great ten rule In-Reply-To: <200402280040.i1S0eq226285@famine.OCF.Berkeley.EDU> Message-ID: <000001c3fe3a$958dead0$0402a8c0@Lexicon> > >And MegaTokyo is a good example of why this works. You're saving > >yourself significant effort if you're informed when it actually gets > >updated instead of having to check constantly on the off chance... > > OK, I can understand that. In the case of Making Light, > while there aren't new entries every day, there's a thriving > community in the comment threads that is worth checking > daily. But I can see how that would be useful for something > like the "Hello Cthulhu" web-strip or Steve's own blog. I use the freeware windows program WebMon to watch blogs and comics. Just lets you know when a page changes, and you can specify it to Only check certain portions of the page, as well as to schedule checks. Lot a neat options. http://www.btinternet.com/~markwell/webmon/ -Orion ---------- "Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought." -Yamamoto Tsunetomo From marewhalen at yahoo.com Sun Feb 29 17:42:27 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 17:42:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unnerving In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040301014227.56321.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Newell wrote: > I'm game. > > But don't read this email unless you've read all the > Dragaeran novels, as > there are spoilers for most of them below. > > > > > > 1. Why hasn't any action been taken against Paarfi > by the Empire for > publishing to the masses how to defeat the Orb? Possibly the Lords of Judgement made some changes to the Orb when it was in the Paths of the Dead that make this option worthless now. Then again, maybe the Orb is at least partially sentient itself (similar to a Great Weapon but intended for a larger purpose) and can learn from its mistakes in the past. This would mean that Mario was the first person to think of doing this. However, probably not many people through the history of the Empire wanted to take a chance in harming the Orb (and their reasoning seems good). > > 2. Should Vlad be insulted that the Imperial Title > he was granted in > "Phoenix" was for Szurke, which means "commonplace" > or "drab" in > Hungar--err, I mean, Fenarian? > No, I'm sure he realizes it's just the name of the lake. Unless he finds the Empress renamed it for him... > > 3. Why does Noish-pa revere Verra, the goddess of > Elder Sorcery, instead of > her sister Moranthe, the goddess of Witchcraft? > Verra seems to take a greater interest in Fenario than her sisters, possibly from some events far in the past. Even people who don't use witchcraft or sorcery worship Verra (such as the former King of Fenario). I don't think there's a requirement to worship the god of what you do for a living. And when did he become a witch anyway? Maybe he was worshiping her for years before he could get a better deal from Moranthe. > > 4. When the Empire was founded, Kieron was, well, > Kieron, Vlad was Dolivar, > have had a sex change, so was Aliera Drien? > Maybe, but it seems pretty misleading to refer to Drien as a contemporary if gya was really a sibling. Then again, Vlad has heard plenty of misleading statements. In this case there shouldn't be any intention to mislead him since the information should be fairly easy to find. > > 5. Maybe you all can help me out with my mapping > project. On page 290 of > Teldra: Perhaps fifty leagues from Covered Springs, > in the southwest corner. > > In the southwest corner? What the heck does that > mean? Is this just Paarfi > not, then in the southwest corner of _what_? I think he means from the village at the southwest corner of Southmoor (the closest point to Adrilanka). > 6. Is Grita Ibronka's (much) older sister? Consider I think she definitely is. > > 8. On pages 141 and 142 of "Issola," Vlad turns to > take a step towards > Aliera and Morrolan, who have just appeared in his > Jenoine prison. As he > begins his step, he suddenly has a "mystical > experience". > > > Is that the same as "being in two places at the same > time," which Sethra > explained is what makes a god a god? Is Vlad a god, > or was he a god for > that single step? He appears to have had three > distinct experiences > simultaneously. Maybe this is a pre-Godslayer hint > at HOW Godslayer can > kill a god (by making its user a god, in at least > some sense). > I don't think he's even partially a god. I'm fairly sure that gods have to be able to control when they're in several places at once using their accumulated skills and abilities. He probably wasn't really in several places, either. I think that the Jenoine are psychically or technologically (or both) studying him and his abilities as a witch and sorceror are mixing with his bond to his familiar and his link to Spellbreaker. This causes him to notice their interest at the same time one link is suppressed (to Loiosh) and one is increased (to Spellbreaker). This causes him to have three chains of experience at once, most very confusing, and he loses consciousness. > > 9. During Teckla Reigns, the Empire is referred to > as a Republic (search for > Has she forgotten the Teckla Republics? Or is that > what she's referring to > by "another time and another place" "in ten thousand > years, or a hundred > thousand"? The "another place" makes me think she The Teckla Republic is just one reign in the cycle. It comes to an end within a preestablished framework. I agree that Kelly is hoping to end the cycle so no other House of nobles will ever gain control again and the populous masses (Teckla) will have control by reason of numbers and place in society. > > 11. Having recently watched the first four seasons > of "The Sopranos" > back-to-back-to-back-to-back, as it were, I find > myself wondering: Where > are the strip clubs in Adrilankha? Maybe strip > clubs only exist where > looking is legal, but touching is not, and in places > where touching is > legal, why would you pay just to look? > Well, this could very well be the reason. Then again, you could just as well say "where are the belly dancers, the snake charmers, the gladiatorial combat?" The entertainments favored by a culture can differ based on historical events. If no one thinks of doing something, it won't be around even if it would be popular. Just think about yo-yos. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From howard at brazee.net Sun Feb 29 17:55:12 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 18:55:12 -0700 Subject: point about _Dragon_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c3ff30$3cc21010$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Philip Hart wrote: > On pg 15 (ppb) of _Dragon_ Vlad describes having related the events > of _Taltos_, which occurred "just days before", to a box with ears. > Somewhere else we learn someone convinced him his stories would never > get back to anyone involved. I found it rather difficult to suspend > my disbelief that V would confide to a stranger the histories of the > Vladiad. It now strikes me as rather odd that the stranger in > question would know to question V after _Taltos_ - before he'd been > rather unusual but (as far as we know) hardly noteworthy to anyone > except Kiera. Hmm. Brust plays with us. We have to suspend our disbelief to believe in several aspects of his stories. This appears to be one of his jokes, possibly based upon John Carter or something similar. From marewhalen at yahoo.com Sun Feb 29 18:06:18 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 18:06:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: point about _Dragon_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040301020618.83195.qmail@web14004.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > On pg 15 (ppb) of _Dragon_ Vlad describes having > related the events > of _Taltos_, which occurred "just days before", to a > box with ears. > Somewhere else we learn someone convinced him his > stories would never > get back to anyone involved. I found it rather > difficult to suspend my > disbelief that V would confide to a stranger the > histories of the Vladiad. > It now strikes me as rather odd that the stranger in > question would know > to question V after _Taltos_ - before he'd been > rather unusual but > (as far as we know) hardly noteworthy to anyone > except Kiera. Hmm. Actually, going to the Paths of the Dead and returning alive are unusual enough to be interesting to almost anyone. Maybe an interdimensional traveler interested in Dragaera found out what Vlad did and told him that he would only spread the story in his home dimension. If he got interested in Vlad's story or hooked on his style (easy enough to do) he might come back for more and get lucky. Then again... __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Sun Feb 29 18:01:54 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 18:01:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: Questions and Spoilers (was: Unnerving) In-Reply-To: <5E38B6EC.394BC79D.00048EA6@aol.com> Message-ID: <20040301020154.19427.qmail@web14010.mail.yahoo.com> --- Gaertk at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 2/29/2004 2:34:13 AM Eastern > Standard Time, "Bryan Newell" > writes: > > > But don't read this email unless you've read all > the > > Dragaeran novels, as there are spoilers for most > of them > > below. > > > > > > 1. Why hasn't any action been taken against Paarfi > by the > > Empire for publishing to the masses how to defeat > the Orb? > > Do you really believe that it's trivially easy to > summon > unimaginable amounts of sorcerous power without > using the Orb > or purple stones or anything? And I'm sure it's > just > coincidence that this happened at the same time > Adron lost > control of his huge Elder Sorcery spell. > Yes. The Orb uses Elder Sorcery itself. It has to summon (and direct) power for thousands of people at a time. It's certainly a great achievement in craft, but it would be beyond anyone's power if summoning energy from the Sea of Chaos were very difficult. Just like a citizen who uses the orb finds it easy to summon power from it, the Orb can easily get that power from the Sea of Chaos. The same general rules apply to the two forms of sorcery, since one is merely a subset of the other. Summoning power is easy, the difficult part is creating a complex spell with it. I remember in one book, Vlad explains that the easiest sorcerous maneuver is to grab some power and direct it towards an opponent (but this is also the easiest to counter). Also, the purple stones seem to form around the Great Sea of Chaos relatively often. Just having one in your possession for a while can give a person insight into Elder Sorcery. Since it was legal to possess these for many thousands of years in the Empire, they shouldn't be so rare that the Empress would be blase about a method for weakening her power being spread that makes use of them. Why would Adron have lost control of the spell at that time unless Tortaalik had already been killed with the Orb inert? It wasn't a coincidence; his spell's failure occurred because of the success of Mario's attack on the Orb (through the Elder sorceress's magic). > > > 7. Who is Sethra referring to on page 198 of > "Issola": "I > > am the only Lavode left. Well, there's one other, > but he > > isn't ready yet." > > First guess: VN. Of course, Sethra is trying to > conceal this > person's identity, so she may have said "gya" > instead of "he" > which allows other possibilities (T, SiG). > Well, the only information given about "gya" in the books (which is also almost the only information about the grammar of the language the characters are actually speaking) is that it is used when the sex of the person referred to is unknown to the speaker. Sethra knows who she's talking about, so she wouldn't use the word. This is exactly the same as in many languages here on Earth (this would be similar to those who use "one" or "they" in English to stand for an unknown or general person). __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From bryann at bryann.net Sun Feb 29 18:48:17 2004 From: bryann at bryann.net (Bryan Newell) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 20:48:17 -0600 Subject: Unnerving In-Reply-To: <20040301014227.56321.qmail@web14007.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > > But don't read this email unless you've read all the > > Dragaeran novels, as > > there are spoilers for most of them below. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 4. When the Empire was founded, Kieron was, well, > > Kieron, Vlad was Dolivar, > > > have had a sex change, so was Aliera Drien? > > > > Maybe, but it seems pretty misleading to refer to > Drien as a contemporary if gya was really a sibling. > Then again, Vlad has heard plenty of misleading > statements. In this case there shouldn't be any > intention to mislead him since the information should > be fairly easy to find. Any other thoughts on who she might have been? I briefly toyed with Zerika the First (hair color, it's weak). Just because Zerika was a Phoenix doesn't necesarily mean she wasn't Kieron's sister, either, as there appear to be two ways to be a Phoenix: Have Phoenix parents, or the Cycle can take matters into its own hands, so to speak (pg 179 of the ppbk "The Paths of the Deads"). > > 5. Maybe you all can help me out with my mapping > > project. On page 290 of > > > Teldra: Perhaps fifty leagues from Covered Springs, > > in the southwest corner. > > > > In the southwest corner? What the heck does that > > mean? Is this just Paarfi > > > not, then in the southwest corner of _what_? > > I think he means from the village at the southwest > corner of Southmoor (the closest point to Adrilanka). Mmm.. I didn't think of that one. I very nearly think you are correct. Thanks. > > 6. Is Grita Ibronka's (much) older sister? Consider > > I think she definitely is. Excellent; I feared I was very nearly displaying tendencies of the House of Yendi on that one... > > 11. Having recently watched the first four seasons > > of "The Sopranos" > > back-to-back-to-back-to-back, as it were, I find > > myself wondering: Where > > are the strip clubs in Adrilankha? Maybe strip > > clubs only exist where > > looking is legal, but touching is not, and in places > > where touching is > > legal, why would you pay just to look? > > > > Well, this could very well be the reason. Then > again, you could just as well say "where are the belly > dancers, the snake charmers, the gladiatorial combat?" > The entertainments favored by a culture can differ > based on historical events. If no one thinks of doing > something, it won't be around even if it would be > popular. Just think about yo-yos. Like I said, the question arose from comparing the Sopranos to the Jhereg. Sure they have brothels, but all in all, compared to us, I'm just suprised at how asexual Dragaerans are. Perhaps it's due to the fact that there doesn't appear to be much different between the sexes. Then again, I recall there is a brief mention by Paarfi of the inevitable rape that accompanies conquest (sorry, can't remember which book it was in, so I don't have text--I just checked the Booksearch, and there are no matches for "rape", so it was almost certainly "The Lord of Castle Black"). Bryan From greyw01f at hotmail.com Sun Feb 29 20:20:00 2004 From: greyw01f at hotmail.com (J C) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 04:20:00 +0000 Subject: Vlad's mother Message-ID: It occurred to me that a great deal is made of bloodlines--specifically, the liquid that is physically running through a person's veins. I'm sure we all know what god's blood in a mortal does, and further we seem to know that the E'Kieron bloodline has the ability to control amorphia. Now, when Aliera says bloodline, does she actually mean *blood*line, or some sort of spiritual inheritance thing that Vlad might find interesting? If it is the bloodline, and here comes the spoiler, Who is Vlad's mother? I think we can assume (although not necessarily) that Vlad's ancestor did not interbreed with some Fenarians, although he very well could have, due to his outcast nature. The question here becomes, how far did his bitterness and disenchantment go? Far enough to overcome what can be assumed to be Noble predisposition on a racial level? We know he can go against other Dragaerans, even family, to look after his own, but was he motivated primarily by a self-preservatory instinct or by spite? If spite, is it general enough to include all of Dragaerans, in an ironic, and totally SKZBian ironic reversal, consider Vlad's father's opinions on which race is "superior"? Or was Vlad's father necessarily like he was in order to inspire the characteristic hate of Dragaerans and their empire in Vlad, which apparently resonates with Dolivar? On the other hand, if it does involve the physical blood, perhaps we should look at Vlad's *mother*. If a father had a fetish with dragaerans, is it all that unlikely that he would pursue a dragaeran mate? Can they interbreed? Was that why Noish-pa was so concerned for Vlad being taught about the Fenarian methods and lifestyles? Of course, if it's some mystical metaphysical connection that allows Vlad to create amorphia, then this all becomes a matter of mere curiousity. Jon _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca From akodobob at sbcglobal.net Sun Feb 29 21:17:31 2004 From: akodobob at sbcglobal.net (Bob) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 21:17:31 -0800 Subject: Vlad's mother References: Message-ID: <001f01c3ff4c$819e79f0$6501a8c0@DELL1> > > It occurred to me that a great deal is made of bloodlines--specifically, the > liquid that is physically running through a person's veins. I'm sure we all > know what god's blood in a mortal does, and further we seem to know that the > E'Kieron bloodline has the ability to control amorphia. > > Now, when Aliera says bloodline, does she actually mean *blood*line, or some > sort of spiritual inheritance thing that Vlad might find interesting? > > If it is the bloodline, and here comes the spoiler, > > > > > > > > > > > Who is Vlad's mother? I think we can assume (although not necessarily) that > Vlad's ancestor did not interbreed with some Fenarians, although he very > well could have, due to his outcast nature. The question here becomes, how > far did his bitterness and disenchantment go? Far enough to overcome what > can be assumed to be Noble predisposition on a racial level? We know he can > go against other Dragaerans, even family, to look after his own, but was he > motivated primarily by a self-preservatory instinct or by spite? > As I recall, at the time of Dolivar there was no Noble predisposition, since there were no Houses, noble or not, only tribes, and as the leader of the outcasts (i.e. the Jhereg) I doubt Dolivar would have had much of the disposition > If spite, is it general enough to include all of Dragaerans, in an ironic, > and totally SKZBian ironic reversal, consider Vlad's father's opinions on > which race is "superior"? > > Or was Vlad's father necessarily like he was in order to inspire the > characteristic hate of Dragaerans and their empire in Vlad, which apparently > resonates with Dolivar? > > On the other hand, if it does involve the physical blood, perhaps we should > look at Vlad's *mother*. If a father had a fetish with dragaerans, is it > all that unlikely that he would pursue a dragaeran mate? Can they > interbreed? Was that why Noish-pa was so concerned for Vlad being taught > about the Fenarian methods and lifestyles? > I believe it is pretty clearly stated that Easterners and Dragaerans can not interbreed. However, it could turn out that through mystical or other unexplained methods he is the metaphoric "crossbreed" of fantasy cliche. Personally I like the idea that Vlad's mum is Verra. That would explain why Vlad's father was so vauge about his mother, futher support his ability to summon amorphia (divine blood's got to be good for something), his ability to leave the Paths of the Dead (ending the confusion about why the Drageraen soul in Vlad could leave the Paths), and explain the much more personal way in which Verra and Devera treat Vlad (sure Verra is harsh, but Vlad has gotten away with dressing down Verra at least once, and has one heck of a lot of more contact with her than we see with any other character). > Of course, if it's some mystical metaphysical connection that allows Vlad to > create amorphia, then this all becomes a matter of mere curiousity. > > Jon > From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Sun Feb 29 21:56:11 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 21:56:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Vlad's mother In-Reply-To: <001f01c3ff4c$819e79f0$6501a8c0@DELL1> References: <001f01c3ff4c$819e79f0$6501a8c0@DELL1> Message-ID: Vlad's lineage doesn't much interest me (Verra tells him he's from peasant stock, which I think rules out most wild speculation) - but Cawti's does. Her maternal grandsomething is something odd - I didn't understand this point in _Brokedown Palace_ and don't understand how it tracks with the Dragaeran world we know from the Vladiad and the Paarfiad. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Mar 1 01:13:27 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 01:13:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unnerving In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: > But don't read this email unless you've read all the Dragaeran novels, as > there are spoilers for most of them below. > > > > > > > > > > 1. Why hasn't any action been taken against Paarfi by the Empire for > publishing to the masses how to defeat the Orb? Because Paarfi is Sethra's mouthpiece, and no one wants to mess with her. > 3. Why does Noish-pa revere Verra, the goddess of Elder Sorcery, instead of > her sister Moranthe, the goddess of Witchcraft? Ask a Catholic. > 4. When the Empire was founded, Kieron was, well, Kieron, Vlad was Dolivar, > but who was Aliera? Aliera says she was a Shaman, and in "Issola" we hear > that Drien was a Shaman/Warrior contemporary of Kieron's, and may or may not > have had a sex change, so was Aliera Drien? No. This would make her relationship with Morrolan e'Drien too Oedipal. Also I believe Drien is described as complex, possibly as unstable - not Alieraesque. > 6. Is Grita Ibronka's (much) older sister? ... Yes. People on the list eagerly await their presumed confrontation. I'm looking forward to her death, because she bores me - my guess is the two sisters will kill each other, or Piro will kill Grita forcing Ibronka to kill him. I'm rooting for Roaana only to escape alone to tell us. > 8. On pages 141 and 142 of "Issola," Vlad turns to take a step towards > Aliera and Morrolan, who have just appeared in his Jenoine prison. As he > begins his step, he suddenly has a "mystical experience".... > Is that the same as "being in two places at the same time"... I don't think so. I think Vlad is either fragmented or (rather more likely) receiving inputs from a variety of sources which he interprets as three different experiences or (rather more likely) has an brief odd experience which his conscious mind can't interpret but which his sleeping mind assembles through dream into three coherent lines. Or, most likely of all, Vlad has a brief odd experience which he decides to express in a confusing way for the fun of it. > 9. ... Verra says, "Kelly has his hands on the truth about the way a > society works ... > Has she forgotten the Teckla Republics? Or is that what she's referring to > by "another time and another place" "in ten thousand years, or a hundred > thousand"? The "another place" makes me think she is talking about > somewhere BESIDES Dragaera (wherever she came from, or the "small invisible > lights" the Easterners came from), which again begs the question, what about ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ aaaaahhhh! > Teckla Republics? Maybe what Kelly wants isn't the same as a Teckla > Republic? Kelly wants to break the Cycle. He doesn't want to form a govt that will scrap its constitution in a set timeframe. She's surely talking about Marxism or some other earthly analysis, and noting that it doesn't make any sense in a world that's a) widely preindustrial, b) indifferent to widescale slaughter, and c) run by a big cosmic wheel administered by a bunch of gods . Note that it's possible that House Teckla will take the throne through revolution, but more likely by the normal means of a) the last emperor dying or b) gaining either sufficient influence and wealth to take power or c) being suited to address a crisis (perhaps an agricultural collapse). > 10. In "The Lord of Castle Black", on page 318, Clari has a conversation > with "a certain Dragonlord of middle years distinguished by a large build, aka Dortmund. > 11... Where are the strip clubs in Adrilankha? Maybe strip clubs only > exist where looking is legal, but touching is not, and in places where > touching is legal, why would you pay just to look? Dragaerans have much less of a taboo against prostitution - I agree. Note that Dragaerans might well have fewer body taboos in general, and that this might make such clubs less appealing and less needed. But maybe there are scads of bars with naked waitstaffs which we haven't seen because of Vlad's Eastern mores. From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Mar 1 01:35:19 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 01:35:19 -0800 (PST) Subject: point about _Dragon_ In-Reply-To: <20040301020618.83195.qmail@web14004.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040301020618.83195.qmail@web14004.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, mary whalen wrote: > > --- Philip Hart wrote: > > On pg 15 (ppb) of _Dragon_ Vlad describes having related the events of > > _Taltos_, which occurred "just days before", to a box with ears. > > Somewhere else we learn someone convinced him his stories would never > > get back to anyone involved. I found it rather difficult to suspend > > my disbelief that V would confide to a stranger the histories of the > > Vladiad. It now strikes me as rather odd that the stranger in question > > would know to question V after _Taltos_ - before he'd been rather > > unusual but (as far as we know) hardly noteworthy to anyone except > > Kiera. Hmm. > > Actually, going to the Paths of the Dead and returning alive are > unusual enough to be interesting to almost anyone. Maybe an > interdimensional traveler interested in Dragaera found out what Vlad did > and told him that he would only spread the story in his home dimension. My point was, how would the traveller find out about the events of _Teckla_, and how could that happen within days, and how could anyone convince Vlad to discuss the events in question when he had a) just had his world greatly expanded, b) just had a bunch of very difficult-to- organize-into-a-three-or-however-many-voice-symphony experiences, c) just spent some time recovering from sleep deprivation followed by a life- threateningly-difficult spell, and d) just spent some time getting back up to speed at the office and putting out small fires etc. No, I think this had to be a prior arrangement. I think this is further borne out by Vlad's (implied) description of the transaction as unremarkable at the time. It does depend a little on what "just days" means, I suppose, but V does seem financially ok at the time and hence less likely than earlier in his career to covet the telling fee. As an aside, it is remarked by memoirists and poets and so forth that the need to have experiences to relate leads one to seek out situations likely to lead to good material, a process which may distort one's life. I wonder if during _Dragon_ Vlad had in the back of his mind, It'd make a nice tale for the box if I joined the army and met a bunch of Dragons. From howard at brazee.net Mon Mar 1 04:48:48 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 05:48:48 -0700 Subject: point about _Dragon_ In-Reply-To: <20040301020618.83195.qmail@web14004.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000001c3ff8b$8afdc610$b07ba8c0@Dad133> mary whalen wrote: > Actually, going to the Paths of the Dead and > returning alive are unusual enough to be interesting > to almost anyone. Maybe an interdimensional traveler > interested in Dragaera found out what Vlad did and > told him that he would only spread the story in his > home dimension. If he got interested in Vlad's story > or hooked on his style (easy enough to do) he might > come back for more and get lucky. Then again... I kind of guess that he's someone from the future - someone with the ability to make Vlad not talk about him & the box and possibly not think about him (except when he's writing). Although having to make that journal simply means that Vlad is living in interesting times - not that he will continue to survive or be a major player. From howard at brazee.net Mon Mar 1 04:53:18 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 05:53:18 -0700 Subject: Vlad's mother In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000101c3ff8c$2bf09fc0$b07ba8c0@Dad133> J C wrote: > It occurred to me that a great deal is made of > bloodlines--specifically, the liquid that is physically running > through a person's veins. I'm sure we all know what god's blood in a > mortal does, and further we seem to know that the E'Kieron bloodline > has the ability to control amorphia. My son wrote an unpublished novel where the hero is called a vampire - but they don't drink people's blood - but gained power by drinking some god's blood. So what would happen in Vlad's world if a vampire was able to acquire god's blood? I suppose if there was a mandate that she uses the blood in for a particular purpose it doesn't matter. But maybe that's part of a supply that is the vampire's subsistence. From howard at brazee.net Mon Mar 1 04:56:05 2004 From: howard at brazee.net (Howard Brazee) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 05:56:05 -0700 Subject: Vlad's mother In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000201c3ff8c$8fa6e650$b07ba8c0@Dad133> Philip Hart wrote: > Vlad's lineage doesn't much interest me (Verra tells him he's from > peasant stock, which I think rules out most wild speculation) You believe everything Verra says? From greyw01f at hotmail.com Mon Mar 1 10:09:28 2004 From: greyw01f at hotmail.com (J C) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 18:09:28 +0000 Subject: Vlad's mother (SPOILERS) Message-ID: "what would happen if a vampire got the blood of a god?" Sethra did. She gave it away. Smart lass. Also, Vlad may have come from "peasant stock" but she may have been referring to his father--also, she could have even called her father, even if he were royalty, a "peasant" simply because he was Fenarian--and if she were Vlad's mother, then things get even more complicated. The only problem I really see with Verra being Vlad's mother, and that fact allowing him to summon amorphia is that that should allow Morrolan to summon it as well. Perhaps he just hasn't found out yet, because he's going under a 2000 year old assumption that he cannot, but... This, however, doesn't rule out that Verra is Vlad's mother, merely makes a little more unlikely that it is God's blood, not Kieron's, that gives the ability to summon and control amorphia. No, if it were God's blood that did it, why would they need great weapons and the orb and all the hoohah to protect the planet? A god with access to either Sea would probably be able to withstand the Jenoine. But then, perhaps they *can* control it, but not in huge amounts, not like a Trellanstone can. Who knows. It's complicated. In any event, other than the amorphia bit, I like the Verra as Vlad's mother bit. Perhaps we should look to Verra's relationship and behaviour towards Aliera to get an idea of how she treats her offspring, if that would even apply because of the racial difference, or maybe even the identity differences between the two. Jon _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/bcomm&pgmarket=en-ca&RU=http%3a%2f%2fjoin.msn.com%2f%3fpage%3dmisc%2fspecialoffers%26pgmarket%3den-ca From marewhalen at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 10:29:24 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 10:29:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unnerving In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040301182924.99418.qmail@web14002.mail.yahoo.com> --- Bryan Newell wrote: > > > But don't read this email unless you've read all > the > > > Dragaeran novels, as > > > there are spoilers for most of them below. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 4. When the Empire was founded, Kieron was, > well, > > > Kieron, Vlad was Dolivar, > > > > > have had a sex change, so was Aliera Drien? > > > > > > > Maybe, but it seems pretty misleading to refer > to > > Drien as a contemporary if gya was really a > sibling. > > Any other thoughts on who she might have been? I > briefly toyed with Zerika > the First (hair color, it's weak). Just because > Zerika was a Phoenix > doesn't necesarily mean she wasn't Kieron's sister, > Well, at this point it's possible that we can only refer to her as an unknown shaman who was Kieron's sister. If she wasn't Drien or Drien was a man initially (say, you don't think Aliera was...) she may still have had a line named after her if she had children. I can't think of any lines of Dragons whose founders haven't been described as being from the wrong time period for this, though. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 10:48:24 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 10:48:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unnerving In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040301184824.64559.qmail@web14005.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > > On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: > > But don't read this email unless you've read all > the Dragaeran novels, as > > there are spoilers for most of them below. > > > > > > > > > > 1. Why hasn't any action been taken against Paarfi > by the Empire for > > publishing to the masses how to defeat the Orb? > > Because Paarfi is Sethra's mouthpiece, and no one > wants to mess with her. > Is this based on the theory that Sethra killed Tortaalik and set Mario up to receive the blame/awe? > > > 4. When the Empire was founded, Kieron was, well, > Kieron, Vlad was Dolivar, > > but who was Aliera? Aliera says she was a Shaman, > and in "Issola" we hear > > that Drien was a Shaman/Warrior contemporary of > Kieron's, and may or may not > > have had a sex change, so was Aliera Drien? > > No. This would make her relationship with Morrolan > e'Drien too Oedipal. > Also I believe Drien is described as complex, > possibly as unstable - not > Alieraesque. > She probably wasn't Drien but I don't believe that she and Morrolan are physically involved. She's just his friend and relative who's staying at his home because... Well, I'm sure there's a good reason. > > > 6. Is Grita Ibronka's (much) older sister? ... > > Yes. People on the list eagerly await their > presumed confrontation. > I'm looking forward to her death, because she bores > me - my guess is the I have to agree. I'm pretty disappointed in Grita as a villain so far. Even learning Elder Sorcery hasn't given her any advantage over her foes. Maybe if we saw more of her reasoning and internal conflict about her unusual situation it would be more interesting. All we've seen her do in _Viscount_ is seek revenge on the people she hates by trying to kill their children (a practice they could have more reasonably applied to her but refrained from) in a way that threatens the existence of the Empire and Cycle. > > > 9. ... Verra says, "Kelly has his hands on the > truth about the way a > > society works ... > > > Has she forgotten the Teckla Republics? Or is > > lights" the Easterners came from), which again > begs the question, what about > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > aaaaahhhh! > > > Teckla Republics? Maybe what Kelly wants isn't > the same as a Teckla > > Republic? > > > Kelly wants to break the Cycle. He doesn't want to > form a govt that will > scrap its constitution in a set timeframe. She's > surely talking about > Marxism or some other earthly analysis, and noting > that it doesn't make > any sense in a world that's a) widely preindustrial, > b) indifferent to > widescale slaughter, and c) run by a big > cosmic wheel > administered by a bunch of gods . > If sorcery becomes a good analogue to industry (becoming more useful through time to provide for most needs of the society) than the people who control what amounts to the means of production will be a small elite. Since this is the opposite of Marx's theories, it doesn't look good for Kelly's plans anytime in the future. However, maybe the inevitable path is that improved lifestyle through sorcery will lead to a more compassionate attitude among Dragaerans given much more security, comfort and leisure than their ancestors imagined the masses would have. Emperors ever more tolerant of Easterners and the lower classes (Zerika with her lover and Norathar with her past) will come to power. Eventually, Emperor will be essentially a formality in political life and only the maintenance of the Orb and its duties will be left. There could be elections among the people for political offices (perhaps with one House being favored by mystic influence depending on the Cycle). __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 11:04:35 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 11:04:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: point about _Dragon_ In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040301190435.36862.qmail@web14004.mail.yahoo.com> --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, mary whalen wrote: > > > > > --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > > On pg 15 (ppb) of _Dragon_ Vlad describes having > related the events of > > > _Taltos_, which occurred "just days before", to > a box with ears. > > > Somewhere else we learn someone convinced him > his stories would never > > > get back to anyone involved. I found it rather > difficult to suspend > > > my disbelief that V would confide to a stranger > the histories of the > > > Vladiad. It now strikes me as rather odd that > the stranger in question > > > would know to question V after _Taltos_ - before > he'd been rather > > > unusual but (as far as we know) hardly > noteworthy to anyone except > > > Kiera. Hmm. > > > > Actually, going to the Paths of the Dead and > returning alive are > > unusual enough to be interesting to almost anyone. > Maybe an > > interdimensional traveler interested in Dragaera > found out what Vlad did > > and told him that he would only spread the story > in his home dimension. > > > My point was, how would the traveller find out about > the events of > _Teckla_, You mean _Taltos_, right? >and how could that happen within days, and Did the events of _Taltos_ occur days before or Vlad's recounting of them (relative to the events of _Dragon_ and not the recounting of them)? I thought it was Vlad's describing the events. Remember, at the end of _Taltos_ Vlad says that he's met Morrolan a few times after the end of their journey and that he and Aliera are all right. So it's been at least a few weeks or more since he finished his journey that he tells about it. This should be long enough for Aliera to appear and cause the commotion that Vlad later mentions but never fully describes and his part in it. Depending on what happens when Aliera is recognized by the Empress Vlad might be known to some people as one of her friends or allies (did Vlad spend time in jail at this point?) or someone interested in Aliera's reappearance could find out about him. This could be done magically or possibly through Kragar's interest in Sethra and Morrolan right before Aliera's return (possibly one of Kragar's sources is or is connected to an extra-dimensional information service). > how could anyone > convince Vlad to discuss the events in question when > he had a) just had > his world greatly expanded, b) just had a bunch of > very difficult-to- > organize-into-a-three-or-however-many-voice-symphony > experiences, c) just > spent some time recovering from sleep deprivation > followed by a life- > threateningly-difficult spell, and d) just spent > some time getting > back up to speed at the office and putting out small > fires etc. I think the time between the incidents is longer than you thought it was. > > No, I think this had to be a prior arrangement. I > think this is further > borne out by Vlad's (implied) description of the > transaction as > unremarkable at the time. Well, it's unremarkable by the time he narrates _Dragon_ which is much further along still. Then again, he may just not want to appear nervous about the deal to the person who will eventually listen to his story. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 11:15:58 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 11:15:58 -0800 (PST) Subject: Vlad's mother (SPOILERS) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040301191558.29654.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> --- J C wrote: > > Also, Vlad may have come from "peasant stock" but > she may have been > referring to his father--also, she could have even > complicated. The only problem > I really see with Verra being Vlad's mother, and > that fact allowing him to > summon amorphia is that that should allow Morrolan > to summon it as well. Ah, but in one book she says that Morrolan's inability to manipulate chaos might be "worked around" in some way. Perhaps even then she suspected she would give her blood to reach his veins sometime in the future. However, it may not be just her blood giving him the ability. Instead, it may react with relatively common Dragon genes in a way that brings about his ability. Maybe this is how Kieron got his powers in the first place... > This, however, doesn't rule out that Verra is Vlad's > mother, merely makes a > little more unlikely that it is God's blood, not With the information available so far it seems unlikely that Verra is his mother. She may have spared his life when he was insulting to her, but only because she knows he will be useful to her. She seems to treat him with much more disdain and contempt than she would ever show to Aliera. If anyone mentioned in the books is intended to be Vlad's mother (which doesn't seem that likely) it would probably be Arra. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From marewhalen at yahoo.com Mon Mar 1 11:24:50 2004 From: marewhalen at yahoo.com (mary whalen) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 11:24:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Vlad's mother In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040301192450.12336.qmail@web14003.mail.yahoo.com> SPOILERS FOR BROKEDOWN PALACE --- Philip Hart wrote: > Vlad's lineage doesn't much interest me (Verra tells > speculation) - but Cawti's does. > Her maternal grandsomething is something odd - I > didn't understand this > point in _Brokedown Palace_ and don't understand how > it tracks with the > Dragaeran world we know from the Vladiad and the >Paarfiad. Cawti's maternal grandfather is a demon. The demons mentioned here may seem different from the descriptions in other books, leading to confusion. However, there may be many types and degrees of power among demons. The common ones in Fenario might be minor servants of Verra (or at least they serve her if she bothers to control them for something). I don't think Bolcsesseg is a demon, or any other kind of thing described in the other books (this is one of the most likely points of confusion for people who read the main series of books first). I think he is a representative of "real" magic from back on Earth (not the semi-scientific chaos/ammorphia). He is one of the myths, stories, archetypes of the collective unconsciousness or whatever you like. That's what he means when he says he is older than the power of Faerie. He used to be allied to Verra (and her sisters) because of their former place in folklore. Now they have changed or given their aspect to another power of a different type (the Lords of Judgement). __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Mar 1 11:30:18 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 11:30:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: point about _Dragon_ In-Reply-To: <20040301190435.36862.qmail@web14004.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040301190435.36862.qmail@web14004.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, mary whalen wrote: > > --- Philip Hart wrote: > > > > > > On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, mary whalen wrote: > > > Did the events of _Taltos_ occur days before or Vlad's recounting of > them (relative to the events of _Dragon_ and not the recounting of > them)? I thought it was Vlad's describing the events. Remember, at the > end of _Taltos_ Vlad says that he's met Morrolan a few times after the > end of their journey and that he and Aliera are all right. So it's been > at least a few weeks or more since he finished his journey that he tells > about it. The timeframe shifts in _Dragon_ come fast and furious, which is perhaps why I hadn't noticed this before. Once more for the skeptical: Vlad, well after _Taltos_, says once he had been talking with the box, that the next morning he remembered something, wondered if someone had messed with his memory, asked Loiosh, who mocked him and mentioned some ritual Morrolan had performed, which V had forgotten as well. He then says, "I had forgotten something that happened just days before, yet now, more than three years later", he remembers the conversation about it. It seems to me this doesn't accord with the point you mention. I'm going to nominate this for a minor crack in case Mark Mandel is listening. "It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute." From philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU Mon Mar 1 11:56:11 2004 From: philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Philip Hart) Date: Mon, 01 Mar 2004 11:56:11 -0800 (PST) Subject: Unnerving In-Reply-To: <20040301184824.64559.qmail@web14005.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20040301184824.64559.qmail@web14005.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, mary whalen wrote: > > --- Philip Hart wrote: > > On Sun, 29 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 1. Why hasn't any action been taken against Paarfi by the Empire for > > > publishing to the masses how to defeat the Orb? > > > > Because Paarfi is Sethra's mouthpiece, and no one wants to mess with > > her. > > > > Is this based on the theory that Sethra killed Tortaalik and set > Mario up to receive the blame/awe? I think I have to call the idea you cite a hypothesis. The mouthpiece idea is based on Paarfi's lapdog attitude towards Sethra throughout his works, his access to her private conversations, and his claimed insight into the councils of the gods. And perhaps on points which I've forgotten. It does tie in with the S-killed-T idea, of course. From alexx at panix.com Mon Mar 1 14:37:54 2004 From: alexx at panix.com (Alexx Kay) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 17:37:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: point about _Dragon_ In-Reply-To: from "Philip Hart" at Feb 29, 2004 04:49:51 PM Message-ID: <200403012237.i21MbsP20064@panix3.panix.com> > > On pg 15 (ppb) of _Dragon_ Vlad describes having related the events > of _Taltos_, which occurred "just days before", to a box with ears. > Somewhere else we learn someone convinced him his stories would never > get back to anyone involved. I found it rather difficult to suspend my > disbelief that V would confide to a stranger the histories of the Vladiad. > It now strikes me as rather odd that the stranger in question would know > to question V after _Taltos_ - before he'd been rather unusual but > (as far as we know) hardly noteworthy to anyone except Kiera. Hmm. Semi-new hypothesis: whoever Vlad *thinks* is paying him for these memoirs, the actual patron is Sethra Lavode. She wants the insights into his thinking, the better to mold him into... whatever she's molding him into... Alexx Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers. alexx at carolingiaSP