thinking about thinky

[helenla...@gmail.com]

I spotted a new word (at least, new to me) in the following dust-jacket blurb
from Kirkus Reviews:

"<Author> continues to be almost insufferably good at his brand of fun but
thinky sci-fi adventure."

"Thinky"? Has anyone here run across this word before? Why do you suppose
a reviewer would use this word rather than "thought-provoking," "intelligent,"
"thoughtful," "cerebral," or "clever"? The word "thinky" encompasses these
meanings, but, to my ears, puts an ironic, self-deprecating spin on them. It
seems to me that the use of this word subtly denigrates the value of -- or
perhaps the elitist preference for -- intelligent, thoughtful prose.

Further research reveals that this word is not as recent a coinage as I thought.
Dennis Lim, The Village Voice’s former film editor, said in 2006:

“There was also a lot of pressure to dumb down the writing.... The editors...
routinely complained that the work was too ‘thinky.’”

So, "thinky" seems like a back-handed compliment, though it may say more
about the reviewer than it does about the book. Would you be tempted to run
out and buy a book described as "fun but thinky"?

Best,
Helen

[Peter T. Daniels]

Before I got to the second line of the quote I thought you'd be complaining
about "insufferably good at." That seems oxymoronic. And "fun but thinky"
indicates that something "thinky" is unlikely to be "fun."

[LFS]

Certainly not. But the whole sentence you quote would put me off and
"thinky" seems entirely consistent with the tone.

I googled the quote and on my screen the word is "think-y". I wonder if
that dash makes a difference to one's reading of the word.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-scalzi/the-collapsing-empire/



--
Laura (emulate St George for email)

[helenla...@gmail.com]

Interesting. The jacket designer may have unilaterally decided to drop the
dash.... it's been known to happen. But I can't say that the dash would have
made me like the the quote any more. You?

Best,
Helen

[helenla...@gmail.com]

Yes, I agree.

For the record, Scalzi does write books that are both entertaining and
intelligent. But I consider the use of the word "thinky" (or "think-y") to be
a worrisome symptom of our culture's declining appreciation for thinking.

Best,
Helen

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 11:01:26 -0700 (PDT), helenla...@gmail.com
wrote:

>I spotted a new word (at least, new to me) in the following dust-jacket blurb
>from Kirkus Reviews:
>
>"<Author> continues to be almost insufferably good at his brand of fun but
>thinky sci-fi adventure."
>
>"Thinky"? Has anyone here run across this word before? Why do you suppose
>a reviewer would use this word rather than "thought-provoking," "intelligent,"
>"thoughtful," "cerebral," or "clever"? The word "thinky" encompasses these
>meanings, but, to my ears, puts an ironic, self-deprecating spin on them. It
>seems to me that the use of this word subtly denigrates the value of -- or
>perhaps the elitist preference for -- intelligent, thoughtful prose.
>
>Further research reveals that this word is not as recent a coinage as I thought.
>Dennis Lim, The Village Voice’s former film editor, said in 2006:
>
>“There was also a lot of pressure to dumb down the writing.... The editors...
>routinely complained that the work was too ‘thinky.’”

The entry in Wiktionary was created in 2010:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thinky

This is the first time I've met the word.

>
>So, "thinky" seems like a back-handed compliment, though it may say more
>about the reviewer than it does about the book. Would you be tempted to run
>out and buy a book described as "fun but thinky"?
>
>Best,
>Helen

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[Mark Brader]

Helen Lacedaemonian:

> "<Author> continues to be almost insufferably good at his brand of fun but
> thinky sci-fi adventure."

> "Thinky"? Has anyone here run across this word before?

I haven't.

> So, "thinky" seems like a back-handed compliment, though it may say more
> about the reviewer than it does about the book. Would you be tempted to run
> out and buy a book described as "fun but thinky"?

I might -- especially if it was by John Scalzi, as indicated elsewhere
in the thread.
--
Mark Brader | "If I were creating the world...
Toronto | I would have started with lasers, 8:00, Day 1!"
m...@vex.net | --Evil ("Time Bandits", Palin & Gilliam)

[Tony Cooper]

On Tue, 25 Jun 2019 16:50:19 -0500, m...@vex.net (Mark Brader) wrote:

>Helen Lacedaemonian:
>> "<Author> continues to be almost insufferably good at his brand of fun but
>> thinky sci-fi adventure."
>
>> "Thinky"? Has anyone here run across this word before?
>
>I haven't.

There must have been a time when someone said "I've never run across
this word before" about "thinko".
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[helenla...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, June 25, 2019 at 2:50:26 PM UTC-7, Mark Brader wrote:
> Helen Lacedaemonian:
> > "<Author> continues to be almost insufferably good at his brand of fun but
> > thinky sci-fi adventure."
>
> > "Thinky"? Has anyone here run across this word before?
>
> I haven't.
>
> > So, "thinky" seems like a back-handed compliment, though it may say more
> > about the reviewer than it does about the book. Would you be tempted to run
> > out and buy a book described as "fun but thinky"?
>
> I might -- especially if it was by John Scalzi, as indicated elsewhere
> in the thread.

I like his writing as well. Do you think the blurb above does it justice?

Best,
Helen

[Jerry Friedman]

I prefer "fun and thinky", especially in SF. "Fun and thoughtful" is
definitely better.

And no, I hadn't seen that word before.

--
Jerry Friedman

[LFS]

No, it smacks of pretentious self-awareness. But I'm now trying to think
of examples of "-y" added to words which I may have come across. "-ish"
is possibly more common.

[Peter Moylan]

I wouldn't, but then I had already been put off by "sci-fi". To many
fans of science fiction, SF means real science fiction and sci-fi means
junk.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia

[Tony Cooper]

On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 03:07:56 +0100, LFS <lauraDRA...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>On 25/06/2019 19:41, helenla...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, June 25, 2019 at 11:27:06 AM UTC-7, LFS wrote:
>>> On 25/06/2019 19:01, helenla...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> I spotted a new word (at least, new to me) in the following dust-jacket blurb
>>>> from Kirkus Reviews:
>>>>
>>>> "<Author> continues to be almost insufferably good at his brand of fun but
>>>> thinky sci-fi adventure."
>>>>
>>>> "Thinky"? Has anyone here run across this word before? Why do you suppose
>>>> a reviewer would use this word rather than "thought-provoking," "intelligent,"
>>>> "thoughtful," "cerebral," or "clever"? The word "thinky" encompasses these
>>>> meanings, but, to my ears, puts an ironic, self-deprecating spin on them. It
>>>> seems to me that the use of this word subtly denigrates the value of -- or
>>>> perhaps the elitist preference for -- intelligent, thoughtful prose.
>>>>
>>>> Further research reveals that this word is not as recent a coinage as I thought.

>>>> Dennis Lim, The Village Voice痴 former film editor, said in 2006:
>>>>
>>>> 典here was also a lot of pressure to dumb down the writing.... The editors...
>>>> routinely complained that the work was too 奏hinky.樗

>>>>
>>>> So, "thinky" seems like a back-handed compliment, though it may say more
>>>> about the reviewer than it does about the book. Would you be tempted to run
>>>> out and buy a book described as "fun but thinky"?
>>>>
>>>
>>> Certainly not. But the whole sentence you quote would put me off and
>>> "thinky" seems entirely consistent with the tone.
>>>
>>> I googled the quote and on my screen the word is "think-y". I wonder if
>>> that dash makes a difference to one's reading of the word.
>>>
>>> https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-scalzi/the-collapsing-empire/
>>>
>>
>> Interesting. The jacket designer may have unilaterally decided to drop the
>> dash.... it's been known to happen. But I can't say that the dash would have
>> made me like the the quote any more. You?
>>
>
>No, it smacks of pretentious self-awareness. But I'm now trying to think
>of examples of "-y" added to words which I may have come across. "-ish"
>is possibly more common.

Not with a hyphen, but I find "cutesy" to be as annoying as what it
describes.

[helenla...@gmail.com]

I was thinking about your remark, and trying to think of examples of <verb>+y
coinages, when I suddenly recalled the recent popularity of "rapey." As in,
"Brett Cavanaugh's demeanor under Senate questioning was disturbingly
rapey." Or, "Trump's popularity with Republican women is odd, considering
how rapey his usual comportment is."

Some exploration of this term led me to the following article, which styles
the -y ending as a New York-ism. Actually, I should say, a New York-y
mannerism:

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/internet-suffixes-2012-4/

So, do we have New York literati to blame for "think-y?" ... Yeah, probably.

Best,
Helen

[helenla...@gmail.com]

Interesting. I had not registered this distinction as meaningful. Can you
elaborate?

Best,
Helen

[Peter Moylan]

A search on "Is sci-fi still a derogatory term?" will find a few
opinions. Here's a quote from one such web page.

<quote>
A lot of hard-core science fiction fans (and professionals) hate, and I
mean really hate, the term "sci-fi." I once heard Harlan Ellison compare
the term to calling a woman "a broad" and calling a Jew "a kike." (Of
course, Ellison's never one for hyperbole. :-) )
</quote>

The abbreviation SF has been around for a long time, and nobody objects
to it. The term sci-fi arrived later, and it tended to mark the user as
an outsider to the field. It most noticeably came into play when
producers started making "sci-fi" film and television productions. For
whatever reason, they ignored current science fiction and focused
instead on 50-year-old space opera and similar themes. And it violated
Sturgeon's Law, because 99.95% of it was crap.

So, for a little while, SF meant what was printed in books and sci-fi
meant what was on the screen, and the difference in quality between them
was glaring. So, to the people in the field, the term "sci-fi" came to
mean "clumsy poor-quality imitations of science fiction". By the way,
some of them pronounce it "skiffy" as a further mark of derision.

Now, of course, the world has aged since then, and new people have come
on the scene, and the younger people probably sincerely believe that
Star Wars is representative of science fiction. The old fogeys, on the
other hand, remain stubborn in their perception that "sci-fi" means the
dung heap of the field.

[bill van]

Yes. Kind of twee, innit?

bill

[LFS]

I have never heard this word before.

>
> Some exploration of this term led me to the following article, which styles
> the -y ending as a New York-ism. Actually, I should say, a New York-y
> mannerism:
>
> http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/internet-suffixes-2012-4/
>
> So, do we have New York literati to blame for "think-y?" ... Yeah, probably.
>

Interesting, the article has the "-ish" in there as well. I'm sure I've
come across more examples of that but at the moment the only one that
springs to mind is Jew-ish.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/30/jewish-judaism-jonathan-margolis

[RH Draney]

On 6/25/2019 7:07 PM, LFS wrote:
>
> No, it smacks of pretentious self-awareness. But I'm now trying to think
> of examples of "-y" added to words which I may have come across. "-ish"
> is possibly more common.

Well, there's "pitchy", offered as a critique of a vocalist's singing
style on those Simon Cowell-y shows....r

[RH Draney]

When I found I could change the name of some of those standard icons on
the Windows desktop, I changed what had been "My Computer" to "My Widdle
Computesy-Wootsy" to show how I felt about the paradigm I'd been forced
to accept....r

[RH Draney]

On 6/25/2019 11:58 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 26/06/19 14:34, helenla...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, June 25, 2019 at 7:25:12 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>
>>> I wouldn't, but then I had already been put off by "sci-fi". To
>>> many fans of science fiction, SF means real science fiction and
>>> sci-fi means junk.
>>
>> Interesting. I had not registered this distinction as meaningful. Can
>> you elaborate?
>
> A search on "Is sci-fi still a derogatory term?" will find a few
> opinions.

It's perfectly compatible with the distinction between "Trekkies" and
"Trekkers"....r

[Mark Brader]

Peter Moylan:

> <quote>
> A lot of hard-core science fiction fans (and professionals) hate, and I
> mean really hate, the term "sci-fi." I once heard Harlan Ellison compare
> the term to calling a woman "a broad" and calling a Jew "a kike." (Of
> course, Ellison's never one for hyperbole. :-) )
> </quote>
>
> The abbreviation SF has been around for a long time, and nobody objects
> to it. The term sci-fi arrived later, and it tended to mark the user as

> an outsider to the field...

All true, though as a point of etymological history it should be noted that
the invention of "sci-fi" is credited to an insider, Forrest Ackerman.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "One thing that has not changed much in recent years
m...@vex.net | is gravity." --David D. Dunlap, N.Y. Times

[occam]

I note you elected to keep the 'My' of the designation, the most
annoying part of the MS paradigm. 'This bl**dy Computer' would have done.

[RH Draney]

I briefly replaced the "Recycle Bin" icon with a picture of a
toilet...is that close enough?...r

[soup]

On 25/06/2019 19:01, helenla...@gmail.com wrote:

> Would you be tempted to run
> out and buy a book described as "fun but thinky"?

Not 'fun BUT thinky', no.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 3:48:52 AM UTC-4, LFS wrote:

> Interesting, the article has the "-ish" in there as well. I'm sure I've
> come across more examples of that but at the moment the only one that
> springs to mind is Jew-ish.

I think it was maybe Seinfeld who tried "Jew-y," or "Jewey"?

Maybe not. Here's a discussion:

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jewish-or-jewy-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/

> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/30/jewish-judaism-jonathan-margolis

[Quinn C]

* LFS:

Thinky definitely has that straight out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
quality ("glowy", "unmixy"). But those characters were usually excused
by scrambling for words while speaking.

Further read:
Mandala S (2007) Solidarity and the Scoobies: An analysis of the -y
suffix in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Language and
Literature 16(1): 53-73.

--
... English-speaking people have managed to get along a good many
centuries with the present supply of pronouns; ... It is so old and
venerable an argument ... it's equivalent was used when gas, railways
and steamboats were proposed. -- Findlay (OH) Jeffersonian (1875)

[Quinn C]

* Peter Moylan:

> <quote>
> A lot of hard-core science fiction fans (and professionals) hate, and I
> mean really hate, the term "sci-fi." I once heard Harlan Ellison compare
> the term to calling a woman "a broad" and calling a Jew "a kike." (Of
> course, Ellison's never one for hyperbole. :-) )
> </quote>
>
> The abbreviation SF has been around for a long time, and nobody objects
> to it.

However, it has changed meaning. Among others, it's now read as
"Speculative Fiction", to include not only fantasy, but horror as well.

> The term sci-fi arrived later, and it tended to mark the user as
> an outsider to the field. It most noticeably came into play when
> producers started making "sci-fi" film and television productions. For
> whatever reason, they ignored current science fiction and focused
> instead on 50-year-old space opera and similar themes. And it violated
> Sturgeon's Law, because 99.95% of it was crap.

Snobbery. Was there even 2000 entries in the field when someone decided
on this number?

--
... while there are people who are consecrated, chronic
assholes--like Donald Trump for example, or General Patton--
it's a condition that all of us are liable to.
-- Geoffrey Nunberg, 2012 interview

[David Kleinecke]

On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 2:37:50 PM UTC-7, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter Moylan:
>
> > <quote>
> > A lot of hard-core science fiction fans (and professionals) hate, and I
> > mean really hate, the term "sci-fi." I once heard Harlan Ellison compare
> > the term to calling a woman "a broad" and calling a Jew "a kike." (Of
> > course, Ellison's never one for hyperbole. :-) )
> > </quote>
> >
> > The abbreviation SF has been around for a long time, and nobody objects
> > to it.
>
> However, it has changed meaning. Among others, it's now read as
> "Speculative Fiction", to include not only fantasy, but horror as well.
>
> > The term sci-fi arrived later, and it tended to mark the user as
> > an outsider to the field. It most noticeably came into play when
> > producers started making "sci-fi" film and television productions. For
> > whatever reason, they ignored current science fiction and focused
> > instead on 50-year-old space opera and similar themes. And it violated
> > Sturgeon's Law, because 99.95% of it was crap.

One could read old SF - lots of it online now. As I see it
the very early mags (pre 1930) mixed horror, fantasy and SF
freely and specialization really only starts about 1930
(actually a little earlier and Weird much earlier). John
W. Campbell really established the limits by his Unknown
Worlds Magazine. After war there were an impressive number
of magazines that tried to be Unknown and and some that
followed Astounding/Analog.

The unintended concept was an explosion of a different genre
which had been with us for a long time - medieval fantasy.
Think "Game of Thrones". Most medieval fantasy these days
gets marketed as sci-fi.

A lot of futures these days are thought of as medieval -
The Book of the New Sun but maybe Cordwainer Smith came
closer to what will happen.

Personally I think the remote (a few tens of thousand years)
future will be neolithic. Much less dramatic I fear.

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

As advanced as neolithic?

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Back in the days when I used M$ DOS I disliked having to use the
command WIN to do whatever it did. So I wrote a command LOSE that
activated the M$ DOS command.


--
athel

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

As with Jonathan Miller in Beyond the Fringe.


--
athel

[LFS]

Yes, he is generally credited with starting it but it's now quite common.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Wednesday, June 26, 2019 at 12:58:44 AM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 26/06/19 14:34, helenla...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Tuesday, June 25, 2019 at 7:25:12 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> >> On 26/06/19 04:01, helenla...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> >>> So, "thinky" seems like a back-handed compliment, though it may
> >>> say more about the reviewer than it does about the book. Would
> >>> you be tempted to run out and buy a book described as "fun but
> >>> thinky"?
> >>
> >> I wouldn't, but then I had already been put off by "sci-fi". To
> >> many fans of science fiction, SF means real science fiction and
> >> sci-fi means junk.
> >
> > Interesting. I had not registered this distinction as meaningful. Can
> > you elaborate?
>
> A search on "Is sci-fi still a derogatory term?" will find a few
> opinions. Here's a quote from one such web page.
>
> <quote>
> A lot of hard-core science fiction fans (and professionals) hate, and I
> mean really hate, the term "sci-fi." I once heard Harlan Ellison compare
> the term to calling a woman "a broad" and calling a Jew "a kike." (Of
> course, Ellison's never one for hyperbole. :-) )
> </quote>

...

Somewhere or other I read the explanation that people who knew a lot
about listening to recorded music with excellent reproduction had
high-fidelity equipment, whereas what you could buy at a department
store was a hi-fi.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter T. Daniels]

There used to be two magazines: High Fidelity, and Hi-Fi Review. (I read
them for the classical articles & record reviews. They had different
stables of actual musicologists on staff; I think Paul Henry Lang,
professor at Columbia, wrote for High Fidelity.) Then the latter changed
its name to Hi-Fi/Stereo Review. Then it changed its name to Stereo Review.
Somewhere along the way the pop music reviews started edging out the
classical reviews, and I didn't renew. I don't know when they folded.

[J. J. Lodder]

Basically the field evolved into a pseudo-science in the seventies.
True believers 'heard' all kinds of minute detail
that could only be demonstrated by sophisticated mmeasuremnt.

Philips at Eindhoven had demonstrated already in the fifties
(bv systematic double-blind testing) that people greatly overrate
their ability to hear subtle details in reproduced music.

Jan

[charles]

In article <1o9ujx4.lj3...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>, J. J. Lodder

> ability to hear subtle details in reproduced music.-

I stopped even reading a so called HiFi Magazine when they told the reader
that gold plated mains plugs improved the stereo separation of recorded
music.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 4:40:30 PM UTC-4, charles wrote:

> I stopped even reading a so called HiFi Magazine when they told the reader
> that gold plated mains plugs improved the stereo separation of recorded
> music.

One or both of our mags ran blind (probably double-blind) A-B tests to
show that gold-plating accomplished nothing. (They also reviewed stereo
equipment too, of course, so they had the appropriate facilities.)

[David Kleinecke]

As advanced - perhaps even early bronze-age.

Speculate about 25,000 CE. All the non-renewable resources long
since exhausted (in the of being extracted economically). Metal
little-used because precious. That's where the neolithic was.

World population less than 100 million. How it got down that low
from our ten billion long forgotten. If enough knowledge is saved
a neolithic life could be a very comfortable life.

[Quinn C]

* Jerry Friedman:

>>> On Tuesday, June 25, 2019 at 7:25:12 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>
>>>> To many fans of science fiction, SF means real science fiction and
>>>> sci-fi means junk.
>

> Somewhere or other I read the explanation that people who knew a lot
> about listening to recorded music with excellent reproduction had
> high-fidelity equipment, whereas what you could buy at a department
> store was a hi-fi.

On is high-fi, the other is high-fee?

--
...an explanatory principle - like "gravity" or "instinct" -
really explains nothing. It’s a sort of conventional agreement
between scientists to stop trying to explain things at a
certain point. -- Gregory Bateson

[J. J. Lodder]

What? Merely a mains plug?
The 16 amp mains fuses should be gold-plated too.

The craziest one I remember was a claim that CD-s sound better
after keeping them overnight in the freezer.

Looking it up I find an echo:
"MS HD Power MS328G Blue 13A UK mains plug, Cryo`ed, Gold Plated"

The term "Cryo'ed was new to me, (it must be capitalised of course)
I haven't kept up with that idiocy. It is explained as:
====
All these conductive parts including the fuse undergo a deep cryogenic
treatment in the UK specifically designed for audio components. This
cold annealing process seems to increase the material conductivity.
Every plug is supplied with a certificate stating that components have
been cryogenically treated in the UK.
===

Note that only Brits are deemed to be sufficiently crazy to do it right.
Never trust a bloody foreigner, Eh?

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

David Kleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 8:38:27 AM UTC-7, PeterWD wrote:
> > On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 17:19:21 -0700 (PDT), David Kleinecke
> > <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > >Personally I think the remote (a few tens of thousand years)
> > >future will be neolithic. Much less dramatic I fear.
> >
> > As advanced as neolithic?
>
> As advanced - perhaps even early bronze-age.
>
> Speculate about 25,000 CE. All the non-renewable resources long
> since exhausted (in the of being extracted economically). Metal
> little-used because precious. That's where the neolithic was.

Eh, why don't the supplies of minable flint get exhausted too?
They were forced into deep mining and long distance transport
of flint already before the Bronze Age.

> World population less than 100 million. How it got down that low
> from our ten billion long forgotten. If enough knowledge is saved
> a neolithic life could be a very comfortable life.

Sure, if you don't use warfare and famine
as the only available means of population control,
like those in the real neolithic,

Jan

[charles]

In article <1o9viaj.3g...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>,

J. J. Lodder <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:

you've missed disease.

[J. J. Lodder]

Unlike warfare and famine disease wasn't human inflicted,
it just happened.
Anyway, for real nasty epidemics you need 'big' cities,
and by then you are in the early bronze.

BTW, DNA evidence of how bad it was has been discovered recently,
in the form of the neolithic Y-chromosome collapse. (ca. 7000-5000 BP)
Y-chromosome variability decreased dramatically in that period,
'as if there were 17 females to each male'.

The most likely explanation is murderous warfare
between patrilineal clans,

Jan

[RH Draney]

And setting people adrift on ice floes....r

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, June 28, 2019 at 4:26:36 AM UTC-4, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> charles <cha...@candehope.me.uk> wrote:
> > In article <1o9viaj.3g...@de-ster.xs4all.nl>,
> > J. J. Lodder <nos...@de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:

> > > Sure, if you don't use warfare and famine
> > > as the only available means of population control,
> > > like those in the real neolithic,
> > you've missed disease.
>
> Unlike warfare and famine disease wasn't human inflicted,
> it just happened.
> Anyway, for real nasty epidemics you need 'big' cities,
> and by then you are in the early bronze.

You're slipping, JJ. You passed up a _perfect_ opportunity to lambaste
"Americans" again.

[Quinn C]

* J. J. Lodder:

> The craziest one I remember was a claim that CD-s sound better
> after keeping them overnight in the freezer.

One possible source of error in reading a CD is deformation. But I'd
expect freezing and thawing to add to that rather than reduce it - plus
introduce fogging. So I've no idea what that was supposed to
accomplish.

> Looking it up I find an echo:
> "MS HD Power MS328G Blue 13A UK mains plug, Cryo`ed, Gold Plated"
>
> The term "Cryo'ed was new to me, (it must be capitalised of course)
> I haven't kept up with that idiocy. It is explained as:
> ====
> All these conductive parts including the fuse undergo a deep cryogenic
> treatment in the UK specifically designed for audio components. This
> cold annealing process seems to increase the material conductivity.
> Every plug is supplied with a certificate stating that components have
> been cryogenically treated in the UK.
> ===

Not commenting on the specifics, but annealing for better conductivity
is not a crazy idea.

| The grain size increases with the increasing of annealing temperature
| and time. The electrical conductivity increases monotonously.

| Effects of annealing process on electrical conductivity and
| mechanical property of Cu-Te alloys
| Transactions of Nonferrous Metals Society of China,
| ISSN: 1003-6326, Vol: 16, Issue: 2, Page: 459-462 (2006)

--
... she didn't exactly approve of the military. She didn't
exactly disapprove, either; she just made it plain that she
thought there were better things for intelligent human beings
to do with their lives. -- L. McMaster Bujold, Memory

[J. J. Lodder]

Quinn C <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:

> * J. J. Lodder:
>
> > The craziest one I remember was a claim that CD-s sound better
> > after keeping them overnight in the freezer.
>
> One possible source of error in reading a CD is deformation.

??? Under the radiation pressure from the reading laser beam???

> But I'd expect freezing and thawing to add to that rather than reduce it -
> plus introduce fogging. So I've no idea what that was supposed to
> accomplish.

It's bunk.

> > Looking it up I find an echo:
> > "MS HD Power MS328G Blue 13A UK mains plug, Cryo`ed, Gold Plated"
> >
> > The term "Cryo'ed was new to me, (it must be capitalised of course)
> > I haven't kept up with that idiocy. It is explained as:
> > ====
> > All these conductive parts including the fuse undergo a deep cryogenic
> > treatment in the UK specifically designed for audio components. This
> > cold annealing process seems to increase the material conductivity.
> > Every plug is supplied with a certificate stating that components have
> > been cryogenically treated in the UK.
> > ===
>
> Not commenting on the specifics, but annealing for better conductivity
> is not a crazy idea.

In a 230 V -power plug- that is carrying a few amps at most
to a stabilised power supply?

Jan

[David Kleinecke]

All that is needed to keep a population stable is
practical contraceptives and abortifacients. These
can be recognized and developed.

The society I expect is neither stupid nor ignorant. Just
materially deprived.

[Snidely]

J. J. Lodder explained on 6/28/2019 :

> Quinn C <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:

>> One possible source of error in reading a CD is deformation.
>
> ??? Under the radiation pressure from the reading laser beam???

No, under the 3000 Lux effect on the CD you left on the car seat all
day. (Yeah, it's not the brightness, but watts and brightness increase
at the same time under insolation.)

/dps


--
I have always been glad we weren't killed that night. I do not know
any particular reason, but I have always been glad.
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, June 30, 2019 at 4:12:18 AM UTC-4, Snidely wrote:
> J. J. Lodder explained on 6/28/2019 :
> > Quinn C <lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:

> >> One possible source of error in reading a CD is deformation.
> > ??? Under the radiation pressure from the reading laser beam???
>
> No, under the 3000 Lux effect on the CD you left on the car seat all
> day. (Yeah, it's not the brightness, but watts and brightness increase
> at the same time under insolation.)

Insulation might have helped with the insolation problem.