Anyone read the Long Earth books by Pratchett and Baxter?

[Doug Weller]

Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
Doug
--
Doug Weller --
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk
Amun - co-owner/co-moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 17:20:05 +0000, Doug Weller
<dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote:

>Surprised not to see them mentioned here.

I think everyone's avoiding Baxter nowadays, in case of misery.

Haven't read them, though the first one is on the shelf. I did read
the precursor short story in Pratchett's _A Blink Of The Screen_ and
it seemed like a reasonable place to kick off a larger tale within.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
"January 1, 2000 might well be the first day in over six years that
is _not_ in September 1993..." - M Grant in afp

But unfortunately, he was later found to be wrong.

[James Nicoll]

In article <21avf9tgkl7m2tktm...@4ax.com>,

Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> wrote:
>On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 17:20:05 +0000, Doug Weller
><dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
>
>I think everyone's avoiding Baxter nowadays, in case of misery.
>

Read half the first one. Put it down. Never got around to finishing it.

--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)

[David DeLaney]

On 2014-02-15, Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote:
> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.

(the Long Earth books)

I have read the first one. It was readable, the plot moved along, I enjoyed
the various concepts; I want to read the second one, but it's currently
stuck in "long paperback". Hmm ... okay the library DOES have it. Sorry,
profit-for-publisher!

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Shawn Wilson]

On Saturday, February 15, 2014 10:20:05 AM UTC-7, Doug Weller wrote:

> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.

I read the first. So-so. Not motivated to read the second.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 17:20:05 +0000, Doug Weller

<dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote in
<news:vc8vf954f7pcd3mnf...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.

For me one author is a don’t-care, and the other’s a
warn-off, so I barely even noticed their existence.

Brian

[A.G.McDowell]

On 15/02/2014 17:20, Doug Weller wrote:
> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
> Doug

Bought the first one in hard back (rare for me) because I was so keen on
the idea. Didn't find it particularly entertaining and wasn't that
impressed by the world-building. In energy, competence, and
organisation, the combined exploration activity of Earth reminds me of a
small birdwatching group I was briefly involved in, except that the
small birdwatching group showed more individual initiative and
competitive spirit.

In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Space, Asimov points out that,
given exponential growth, even a huge number of earths will not be
enough. The authors of "The Long Earth" don't seem to have noticed this.
They have an effectively infinite line of colonisable inhabited earths,
with only our half populated with Homo Sapiens or equivalent - at least
apparently. Even given this, continued expansion will eventually produce
an overwhelming number of people who wish to travel from earth k to
earth k+1, for at least one k. Would probably buy the second one of
there was nothing else I wanted to read, but that's not the case.

[David Mitchell]

On 16/02/14 05:31, A.G.McDowell wrote:
> On 15/02/2014 17:20, Doug Weller wrote:
>> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
>> Doug
> Bought the first one in hard back (rare for me) because I was so keen on
> the idea. Didn't find it particularly entertaining and wasn't that
> impressed by the world-building. In energy, competence, and
> organisation, the combined exploration activity of Earth reminds me of a
> small birdwatching group I was briefly involved in, except that the
> small birdwatching group showed more individual initiative and
> competitive spirit.

<chuckle>

As it happens, I came across the first of these in my local library the
other day.

It's a bit slow (where "bit" means "very"); but it's the only new SF
book I have available at the moment, so I'll give it time.

<spoiler>







Great spoiler though: the publishers have described the next book in the
series: _The long war_.

I wonder how this one ends...


I'm only reading it at all because Pratchett was involved - Baxter has
joined my "only read if there are no other books in the world" list
since _Proxima_, which was possibly the most stupid and annoying book I
have ever read.

--
=======================================================================
= David --- If you use Microsoft products, you will, inevitably, get
= Mitchell --- viruses, so please don't add me to your address book.
=======================================================================

[William December Starr]

In article <ldpifa$dj8$1...@dont-email.me>,

"A.G.McDowell" <andrew-...@o2.co.uk> said:

> In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Space, Asimov points out
> that, given exponential growth, even a huge number of earths will
> not be enough. The authors of "The Long Earth" don't seem to have
> noticed this. They have an effectively infinite line of
> colonisable inhabited earths, with only our half populated with
> Homo Sapiens or equivalent - at least apparently. Even given this,
> continued expansion will eventually produce an overwhelming number
> of people who wish to travel from earth k to earth k+1, for at
> least one k.

"An infinite number of mathematicians check into a hotel..."

-- wds

[James Nicoll]

In article <ldpifa$dj8$1...@dont-email.me>,

A.G.McDowell <andrew-...@o2.co.uk> wrote:
>On 15/02/2014 17:20, Doug Weller wrote:
>> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
>> Doug
>Bought the first one in hard back (rare for me) because I was so keen on
>the idea. Didn't find it particularly entertaining and wasn't that
>impressed by the world-building. In energy, competence, and
>organisation, the combined exploration activity of Earth reminds me of a
>small birdwatching group I was briefly involved in, except that the
>small birdwatching group showed more individual initiative and
>competitive spirit.
>
>In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Space, Asimov points out that,
>given exponential growth, even a huge number of earths will not be
>enough.

The "given exponential growth" may be unwarranted, given what we see happening
on Earth now.

[Michael R N Dolbear]

"James Nicoll" wrote

>>In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Space, Asimov points out that,
>>given exponential growth, even a huge number of earths will not be enough.

.> The "given exponential growth" may be unwarranted, given what we see
happening
on Earth now.

Anything other than Zero Population Growth will eventually run out of space
of course.

There is even an argument based on not being able to exceed the speed of
light.

This implies that the radius R of human settled space cannot expand faster
than light, so its volume can grow no faster than R squared but the human
population for an growth rate however small will expand proportional to the
volume R cubed so the density per unit volume will continuously increase.

Which is impossible.



--
Mike D

[Brian M. Scott]

On Sun, 16 Feb 2014 19:43:12 -0000, Michael R N Dolbear
<m...@privacy.net> wrote in
<news:bmcimb...@mid.individual.net> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> Anything other than Zero Population Growth will eventually
> run out of space of course.

Not true. It’s entirely possible to have a positive growth
rate at all times t >= 0 and still have the population
converge to a finite value: the growth rate simply has to
approach 0 fast enough -- e.g., if the growth rate is
proportional to the inverse square of the population.

[...]

Brian

[Robert Bannister]

On 16/02/2014 1:20 am, Doug Weller wrote:
> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
> Doug
>

It has been mentioned. Not often two good writers collaborate on a
dreadful novel.

--
Robert Bannister - 1940-71 SE England
1972-now W Australia

[Robert Bannister]

On 16/02/2014 1:31 pm, A.G.McDowell wrote:
> On 15/02/2014 17:20, Doug Weller wrote:
>> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
>> Doug
> Bought the first one in hard back (rare for me) because I was so keen on
> the idea. Didn't find it particularly entertaining and wasn't that
> impressed by the world-building. In energy, competence, and
> organisation, the combined exploration activity of Earth reminds me of a
> small birdwatching group I was briefly involved in, except that the
> small birdwatching group showed more individual initiative and
> competitive spirit.

The problem with any huge "world" is that the author feels a need to
fill it up. I see this problem in Wells's "Time Machine", in some of
Niven's "Ringworld" books and the danger was there in Stross's "Merchant
Princes" series. The danger is of ending up with a kind of travelogue,
with lots of little stories, but where you lose sight of the main theme
(if any).

[Greg Goss]

Rama. The Odyssey.

I call these travelogues generically "Odysseys" after 2001's link to
its namesake inspired me to classify 'em.

(The world is divided into two kinds of people. There are those who
divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't. I am a
divider. My late first wife was a unifyer.)
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.

[James Nicoll]

In article <bmcimb...@mid.individual.net>,

Michael R N Dolbear <m.do...@physics.org> wrote:
>
>"James Nicoll" wrote
>
>>>In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Space, Asimov points out that,
>>>given exponential growth, even a huge number of earths will not be enough.
>
>.> The "given exponential growth" may be unwarranted, given what we see
>happening
>on Earth now.
>
>Anything other than Zero Population Growth will eventually run out of space
>of course.
>

We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.

[Greg Goss]

jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:

>In article <bmcimb...@mid.individual.net>,
>Michael R N Dolbear <m.do...@physics.org> wrote:
>>
>>"James Nicoll" wrote
>>
>>>>In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Space, Asimov points out that,
>>>>given exponential growth, even a huge number of earths will not be enough.
>>
>>.> The "given exponential growth" may be unwarranted, given what we see
>>happening
>>on Earth now.
>>
>>Anything other than Zero Population Growth will eventually run out of space
>>of course.
>>
>We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.

Many of the Western Democracies are already there, if you adjust your
demographics by age. Canada is supposedly better prepared to weather
the boomer retirement than most because we've brought in a lot of
fairly young immigrants.

And I think (though I don't know where to look it up) that the former
Soviet block are crashing even harder.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

Russia certainly is; I believe _some_ of the former Soviet-bloc states
are doing okay, though.

Japan is probably the worst off because of (among other things) their
xenophobia and rejection of immigrants -- their population is dropping
steadily now. It peaked a few years back -- 2008, maybe?




--
I'm serializing a new Ethshar novel!
The seventeenth chapter is online at:
http://www.ethshar.com/ishtascompanion17.html

[Ahasuerus]

On Monday, February 17, 2014 5:19:14 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On 2014-02-17 15:46:54 -0500, Greg Goss said:
> > jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> >> We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.
> >
> > Many of the Western Democracies are already there, if you adjust
> > your demographics by age. Canada is supposedly better prepared to
> > weather the boomer retirement than most because we've brought in a
> > lot of fairly young immigrants.
> >
> > And I think (though I don't know where to look it up) that the
> > former Soviet block are crashing even harder.
>

> Russia certainly is [snip]

Not any more, at least according to the Russian government:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/09/05/russias-demographics-continue-to-improve-natural-population-growth-likely-in-2012/

> Japan is probably the worst off because of (among other things)
> their xenophobia and rejection of immigrants -- their population
> is dropping steadily now. It peaked a few years back -- 2008, maybe?

Yes, 2008. It was almost flat in 2009-2010 with minor fluctuations, but
it is dropping steadily now, e.g. see the first graph:
http://www.stat.go.jp/data/jinsui/2012np/index.htm

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 17:19:14 -0500, Lawrence Watt-Evans
<l...@sff.net> wrote in <news:ldu1t1$m0j$1...@dont-email.me> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> On 2014-02-17 15:46:54 -0500, Greg Goss said:

>> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:

[...]

>>> We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.

>> Many of the Western Democracies are already there, if you
>> adjust your demographics by age. Canada is supposedly
>> better prepared to weather the boomer retirement than
>> most because we've brought in a lot of fairly young
>> immigrants.

>> And I think (though I don't know where to look it up)
>> that the former Soviet block are crashing even harder.

> Russia certainly is; I believe _some_ of the former Soviet-bloc states
> are doing okay, though.



> Japan is probably the worst off because of (among other
> things) their xenophobia and rejection of immigrants --
> their population is dropping steadily now. It peaked a
> few years back -- 2008, maybe?

According to

<http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/population>,

it reached an anomalous all-time high of 128.1 million in
December of 2010:

Jan 2005: 127.787
Jan 2006: 127.768
Jan 2007: 127.770
Jan 2008: 127.771
Jan 2009: 127.692
Jan 2010: 127.510
Jan 2011: 128.057
Jan 2012: 127.799
Jan 2013: 127.515
Jan 2014: 127.220

Another source says that 2013 was the fifth consecutive year
of decline, while yet another says that it peaked seven
years ago at 128 million. (Both of these were written in
January.) The graph at

<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Population_of_Japan_since_1872.svg>

seems to put the peak a little earlier even than that,
around 2004.

It appears that Japan has been taking a census at five-year
intervals at least since 1950. There has been an increase
in each of these intervals, but the rate of increase has
been declining since 1975: the increase from 2005 to 2010
was only 0.2%.

<http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/kokusei/index.htm>

The graph at

<https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&hl=en&dl=en&idim=country:JPN:KOR:RUS>

has slightly different data from those in the first table
above:

2005: 127.773
2006: 127.756
2007: 127.771
2008: 127.704
2009: 127.558
2010: 127.451
2011: 128.817
2012: 127.562

I suspect that the figures represent both a different
methodology and a later point in the year.

The same graph shows the Russian Federation hitting a
post-1983 low of 141.91 million in 2009 and then increasing
for three straight years to 143.533 million in 2012.

Kazakhstan has been growing steadily since 2001 after a
ten-year decline. Azerbaijan, the Kyrgyz Republic,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been growing
almost linearly since 1960. Georgia has had very modest
growth since 2008, Kosovo since 2000; neither has returned
to its previous peak (in 1993 and 1997, resp.). Poland has
grown very slowly since 2007, approaching its 1999 peak,
from which it did not fall very much. The Czech Republic
hit an all-time high in 2010, dropped very slightly in 2011,
and recovered most of that in 2012, but it’s had only small
fluctuations since 1980. The Slovak Republic gained from
1960 to 2010, dipped slightly in 2011, and recovered some of
that in 2012. Slovenia has grown very, very slowly since
1998, Macedonia FYR since 1995. Montenegro is at an
all-time high, but the curve has been almost flat since
1990. Poland peaked in 1998 at 38.6635 million, dropped to
38.1206 million in 2007, and has made it back up to 38.5427
million as of 2012.

Hungary is just a hair below its 1960 population after
growing slowly to a peak in 1981 and then declining
steadily; it comes close to being steady-state (from 9.984
million to 10.7118 million to 9.9438 million).

Bulgaria has been declining steadily since 1988. Serbia has
declined slowly but steadily since 1995. Ukraine has lost
an eighth of its 1993 population, but the curve seems to be
leveling out. Belarus also peaked in 1993 and shows the
same general pattern, though it lost a substantially smaller
percentage, and Moldova has a very flat version of the same
pattern after a peak in 1992. Bosnia and Herzegovina peaked
in 1989, dropped sharply to 1996, recovered about 3/8 of the
loss by 2002, and has been slowly declining since then.
Croatia was nearly steady-state from 2000 to 2010, dropped
significantly in 2011, and then dropped slightly in 2012.

Brian

[Brian M. Scott]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 19:12:09 -0500, "Brian M. Scott"
<b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote in
<news:u28yuw1s04qo.i...@40tude.net> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

Forgot: Lithuania and Latvia are declining significantly.
Estonia is declining, but the curve is almost flat.

Brian

[J. Clarke]

In article <0a6fd5e1-d995-435b...@googlegroups.com>,
ahas...@email.com says...

>
> On Monday, February 17, 2014 5:19:14 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> > On 2014-02-17 15:46:54 -0500, Greg Goss said:
> > > jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> > >> We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.
> > >
> > > Many of the Western Democracies are already there, if you adjust
> > > your demographics by age. Canada is supposedly better prepared to
> > > weather the boomer retirement than most because we've brought in a
> > > lot of fairly young immigrants.
> > >
> > > And I think (though I don't know where to look it up) that the
> > > former Soviet block are crashing even harder.
> >
> > Russia certainly is [snip]
>
> Not any more, at least according to the Russian government:
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/09/05/russias-demographics-continue-to-improve-natural-population-growth-likely-in-2012/

Their population started to decline around 1992 but it has started
increasing again very recently. It remains to be seen whether that
trend will cotinue.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On 2014-02-17 18:54:01 -0500, Ahasuerus said:

> On Monday, February 17, 2014 5:19:14 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>> On 2014-02-17 15:46:54 -0500, Greg Goss said:
>>> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>>> We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.
>>>
>>> Many of the Western Democracies are already there, if you adjust
>>> your demographics by age. Canada is supposedly better prepared to
>>> weather the boomer retirement than most because we've brought in a
>>> lot of fairly young immigrants.
>>>
>>> And I think (though I don't know where to look it up) that the
>>> former Soviet block are crashing even harder.
>>
>> Russia certainly is [snip]
>
> Not any more, at least according to the Russian government:
> http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/09/05/russias-demographics-continue-to-improve-natural-population-growth-likely-in-2012/
>

I don't know the facts, but I do know I don't trust Russian government figures.

[Ahasuerus]

On Monday, February 17, 2014 8:07:32 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> On 2014-02-17 18:54:01 -0500, Ahasuerus said:
> > On Monday, February 17, 2014 5:19:14 PM UTC-5, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
> >> On 2014-02-17 15:46:54 -0500, Greg Goss said:
> >>> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> >>>> We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.
> >>>
> >>> Many of the Western Democracies are already there, if you adjust
> >>> your demographics by age. Canada is supposedly better prepared to
> >>> weather the boomer retirement than most because we've brought in a
> >>> lot of fairly young immigrants.
> >>>
> >>> And I think (though I don't know where to look it up) that the
> >>> former Soviet block are crashing even harder.
> >>
> >> Russia certainly is [snip]
> >
> > Not any more, at least according to the Russian government:
> > http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/09/05/russias-demographics-continue-to-improve-natural-population-growth-likely-in-2012/
> >
> I don't know the facts, but I do know I don't trust Russian
> government figures.

I am shocked ... shocked! If you can't trust the Russian government,
who *can* you trust in this world?!

[Moriarty]

On Sunday, February 16, 2014 4:20:05 AM UTC+11, Doug Weller wrote:
> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
>

For me Pratchett is "buy on sight" while Baxter is "not if it was the last book on Earth". So, averaging the two reactions out, means I'll probably get round to reading them one day.

Tangentially, Neil Gaiman became "buy on sight" in the last few years. Imagine my reaction on learning Pratchett and Gaiman had previously collaborated!

-Moriarty

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article, <bmfapt...@mid.individual.net>,
go...@gossg.org "Greg Goss" accurately observed:

> jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.
>
>Many of the Western Democracies are already there, if you adjust your
>demographics by age. Canada is supposedly better prepared to weather
>the boomer retirement than most because we've brought in a lot of
>fairly young immigrants.

- the uk's government (tories & dim lebs), opposition (labour)
and english right wing protest (ukip) parties have raced each
other downward to the gutter in demonising immigrants, equating
refugees with voluntary immigrants, attacking imagined "benefit
tourism" before it's been proven to exist and building it into
a monstrous threat, raising the nightmare prospect of the whole
population of - shudder - transylvania's moving en masse to the
fleshpots of the english heartlands - wherever these might be -
i can't help thinking at least this would at worst add a little
*sparkle* to english towns', villages' & cities' nightlife - at
midnight.00.01 1/1/14 (1/1/14 for merkins)...- that this doesn't
appear to've happened seems irrelevant to all these doomsayers,
as do minor details, such as ~40% of the doctors in the uk nhs
being immigrants, the harvesting of english fruit and vegetable
crops being done by predominantly immigrant workforces prepared
to do hard outside work the native population declines to apply
for (or perform for long, most of those few locals as do), etc,
etc.

- immigrants've helped expand the english economy, and that of
the uk in general, and improved and enlarged our society in many
other ways, since at least the times of queen elizabeth the first
and king james the sixth & first: and our present and our future
both depend upon them, immigrants past, present and future, just
as much as upon people as think of themselves as the real english,
more'n 99% of whom're just from families as immigrated earlier.

- love, ppint.
[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--
Vat girls - the missing piece to the puzzle of Utopia.
- "quadibloc" (j savard) on rasfwr 14/8/10 (8/14/10 for merkins)

[Kurt Busiek]

On 2014-02-18 02:25:27 +0000, Moriarty <blu...@ivillage.com> said:

> Tangentially, Neil Gaiman became "buy on sight" in the last few years.
> Imagine my reaction on learning Pratchett and Gaiman had previously
> collaborated!

And on an excellent book!

kdb
--
Visit http://www.busiek.com -- for all your Busiek needs!

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 18 Feb 2014 02:42:39 +0000 (GMT), ""ppint. at
pplay"" <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote in
<news:20140218.024...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

> - the uk's government (tories & dim lebs), opposition (labour)
> and english right wing protest (ukip) parties have raced each
> other downward to the gutter in demonising immigrants, equating
> refugees with voluntary immigrants, attacking imagined "benefit
> tourism" before it's been proven to exist and building it into
> a monstrous threat, raising the nightmare prospect of the whole
> population of - shudder - transylvania's moving en masse to the
> fleshpots of the english heartlands -

Sounds familiar, apart from fears of a vampire invasion. We
already *have* that, at least in print!

> wherever these might be -
> i can't help thinking at least this would at worst add a little
> *sparkle* to english towns', villages' & cities' nightlife - at
> midnight.00.01 1/1/14 (1/1/14 for merkins)...-

You could always use the style preferred by my Russian
teacher many years ago, e.g., 2-III-13. It should be clear
even to folks accustomed to the bassackwards U.S. style.

> that this doesn't
> appear to've happened seems irrelevant to all these doomsayers,
> as do minor details, such as ~40% of the doctors in the uk nhs
> being immigrants,

Roughly 25% here, and that’s in spite of regulations
designed to make it difficult for immigrant doctors to
practise.

> the harvesting of english fruit and vegetable
> crops being done by predominantly immigrant workforces prepared
> to do hard outside work the native population declines to apply
> for (or perform for long, most of those few locals as do), etc,
> etc.

Again, very familiar.

> - immigrants've helped expand the english economy, and that of
> the uk in general, and improved and enlarged our society in many
> other ways, since at least the times of queen elizabeth the first
> and king james the sixth & first: and our present and our future
> both depend upon them, immigrants past, present and future, just
> as much as upon people as think of themselves as the real english,
> more'n 99% of whom're just from families as immigrated earlier.

Brian
--
It was the neap tide, when the baga venture out of their
holes to root for sandtatties. The waves whispered
rhythmically over the packed sand: haggisss, haggisss,
haggisss.

[Greg Goss]

"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>> i can't help thinking at least this would at worst add a little
>> *sparkle* to english towns', villages' & cities' nightlife - at
>> midnight.00.01 1/1/14 (1/1/14 for merkins)...-
>
>You could always use the style preferred by my Russian
>teacher many years ago, e.g., 2-III-13. It should be clear
>even to folks accustomed to the bassackwards U.S. style.

I started using yymmdd in the eighties. Once Y2K started to show up
on the horizon (1993?) I gradually switched to ISO yyyy-mm-dd.

It took until Excel 2007 before I could choose ISO dates simply from
the "date" section of the formatting menu rather than building a
custom format specification.

Six digit yymmdd dates were obvious prior to Y2K. ISO dates are
obvious without explanation. Nobody puts yyyy-dd-mm, so if you see
four digits up front, you know what it's saying.

[David DeLaney]

On 2014-02-18, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
> ""ppint. at pplay"" <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote in

>> wherever these might be -
>> i can't help thinking at least this would at worst add a little
>> *sparkle* to english towns', villages' & cities' nightlife - at
>> midnight.00.01 1/1/14 (1/1/14 for merkins)...-
>
> You could always use the style preferred by my Russian
> teacher many years ago, e.g., 2-III-13. It should be clear
> even to folks accustomed to the bassackwards U.S. style.

... Richard III, or George III?

Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting thru EarthLink - "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Tue, 18 Feb 2014 01:14:33 -0600, David DeLaney
<davidd...@earthlink.net> wrote in
<news:O6CdnctXa8HElZ7O...@earthlink.com> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

> On 2014-02-18, Brian M. Scott <b.s...@csuohio.edu> wrote:

>> ""ppint. at pplay"" <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote in

>>> wherever these might be -
>>> i can't help thinking at least this would at worst add a little
>>> *sparkle* to english towns', villages' & cities' nightlife - at
>>> midnight.00.01 1/1/14 (1/1/14 for merkins)...-

>> You could always use the style preferred by my Russian
>> teacher many years ago, e.g., 2-III-13. It should be clear
>> even to folks accustomed to the bassackwards U.S. style.

> ... Richard III, or George III?

Ivan III ‘the Great’ Vasilyevich!

[James Nicoll]

In article <20140218.024...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk>,

ppint. at pplay <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> - immigrants've helped expand the english economy, and that of
> the uk in general, and improved and enlarged our society in many
> other ways, since at least the times of queen elizabeth the first
> and king james the sixth & first: and our present and our future
> both depend upon them, immigrants past, present and future, just
> as much as upon people as think of themselves as the real english,
> more'n 99% of whom're just from families as immigrated earlier.

Britain becomes fairly uninhabitable every time there's an ice age so that
sets a hard limit to how long any lineage has been there of, I think,
about 15,000 years. The current human occupation of Britain isn't that
much older than the human occupation of the New World.

[J. Clarke]

In article <le00u6$cf2$1...@reader1.panix.com>, jdni...@panix.com says...

>
> In article <20140218.024...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk>,
> ppint. at pplay <v$af$pp...@i-m-t.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > - immigrants've helped expand the english economy, and that of
> > the uk in general, and improved and enlarged our society in many
> > other ways, since at least the times of queen elizabeth the first
> > and king james the sixth & first: and our present and our future
> > both depend upon them, immigrants past, present and future, just
> > as much as upon people as think of themselves as the real english,
> > more'n 99% of whom're just from families as immigrated earlier.
>
> Britain becomes fairly uninhabitable every time there's an ice age so that
> sets a hard limit to how long any lineage has been there of, I think,
> about 15,000 years. The current human occupation of Britain isn't that
> much older than the human occupation of the New World.

For certain values I think. If this map is correct then the
southernmost parts of Britain and Ireland were ice free but there was
also a good bit of continental shelf accessible due to the lower sea
levels. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weichsel-W%C3%BCrm-
Glaciation.png>

It being wiki of course a certain dose of salt is appropriate.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote in
news:vc8vf954f7pcd3mnf...@4ax.com:

> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.

> Doug

If you drill holes in your brain with a large enough drill bit, maybe
you can erase the memory of it.

I was, shall we say, a little disappointed, especially with the (lack
of an) ending in the first one.

--
Terry Austin

"Terry Austin: like the polio vaccine, only with more asshole."
-- David Bilek

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

"Michael R N Dolbear" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in

news:bmcimb...@mid.individual.net:

>
> "James Nicoll" wrote
>
>>>In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Space, Asimov points out
>>>that, given exponential growth, even a huge number of earths
>>>will not be enough.
>
> .> The "given exponential growth" may be unwarranted, given what
> we see happening
> on Earth now.
>
> Anything other than Zero Population Growth will eventually run
> out of space of course.

Current trends suggest that earth's overall population will begin
shrinking, probably within the lifetimes of people alive today.
Many industrial western nations have birth rates *well* below ZPG,
and maintain populations only because of immigration (and not even
always that). Italy's birth rate, last I heard, was 1.2. That's on
the order of a 50% decline in population each generation.

>
> There is even an argument based on not being able to exceed the
> speed of light.
>
> This implies that the radius R of human settled space cannot
> expand faster than light, so its volume can grow no faster than
> R squared but the human population for an growth rate however
> small will expand proportional to the volume R cubed so the
> density per unit volume will continuously increase.
>
> Which is impossible.
>

Only applies if you believe that humans will breed no matter what,
and real life data says that's not necessarily so. Once giving
birth becomes a matter of choice - reliable birth control
technology - and technology makes children an expense rather than a
labor asset, birth rates drop pretty quickly. We don't know where
it will bottom out.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Ahasuerus <ahas...@email.com> wrote in
news:0a6fd5e1-d995-435b...@googlegroups.com:

> On Monday, February 17, 2014 5:19:14 PM UTC-5, Lawrence
> Watt-Evans wrote:
>> On 2014-02-17 15:46:54 -0500, Greg Goss said:
>> > jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>> >> We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.
>> >
>> > Many of the Western Democracies are already there, if you
>> > adjust your demographics by age. Canada is supposedly better
>> > prepared to weather the boomer retirement than most because
>> > we've brought in a lot of fairly young immigrants.
>> >
>> > And I think (though I don't know where to look it up) that
>> > the former Soviet block are crashing even harder.
>>
>> Russia certainly is [snip]
>
> Not any more, at least according to the Russian government:

There's a reliable source of infomration. Almost as reliable as
Wikipedia. Almost.

[James Nicoll]

In article <MPG.2d6d52f45...@news.newsguy.com>,

The reason I hesitate to link to their demographic transition article
is an evo psych guy has been fiddling with it.

[Jerry Brown]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 18:25:27 -0800 (PST), Moriarty
<blu...@ivillage.com> wrote:

>On Sunday, February 16, 2014 4:20:05 AM UTC+11, Doug Weller wrote:
>> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
>>
>
>For me Pratchett is "buy on sight" while Baxter is "not if it was the last book on Earth".

I've only read The Time Ships, which I really enjoyed. Has he written
anything else like that?

> So, averaging the two reactions out, means I'll probably get round to reading them one day.
>
>Tangentially, Neil Gaiman became "buy on sight" in the last few years. Imagine my reaction on learning Pratchett and Gaiman had previously collaborated!
>
>-Moriarty

--
Jerry Brown

A cat may look at a king
(but probably won't bother)

[William December Starr]

In article <u28yuw1s04qo.i...@40tude.net>,

"Brian M. Scott" <b.s...@csuohio.edu> said:

> According to
>
> <http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/population>,

I love parsing URLs. "What the hell is 'tra dinge conomics'?"

-- wds

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 23:58:57 -0700, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:

[snip]

>Six digit yymmdd dates were obvious prior to Y2K. ISO dates are
>obvious without explanation. Nobody puts yyyy-dd-mm, so if you see
>four digits up front, you know what it's saying.

I had to look. I found:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/04d9917d-fc05-4e3e-ba70-0e8a3eac3fe8/sql-server-incorrectly-parsing-dates-as-yyyyddmm?forum=sqldatabaseengine
and
http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2007/09/28/sql-server-introduction-and-example-for-dateformat-command/

The latter has this example:
SET DATEFORMAT YDM
INSERT INTO #tempTable
VALUES ('2007/28/09')

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

wds...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote in news:le0kuh$hai$1
@panix2.panix.com:

Oh, lordy, be careful about that e-word, or Shawn Wilson will be
humping everyone's pantleg.

[Greg Goss]

That's what it used to be. Now it's ex-tra dingy economics.

[Robert Carnegie]

It is explained that SQL Server version 2008 started with
this me-surprising behaviour, so presumably it's dates from
2007 on (started testing in 2007) that are affected.

Other than that, any date subsequent to the Julian calendar
is acceptable in the system. You won't get your eleven days
(or whatever) from Microsoft.

I'm very glad that I saw this today reading the newsgroup,
and not tomorrow, trying to debug it, which is pretty likely.
We're still using SQL Server 2005, and I may have a
recommendation to make about that. :-)

[Robert Carnegie]

"No one knows what it means, but it's provocative."

In this case, I see maybe /two/ racial slurs if /I/ said it,
so I won't. Possibly three; see previous quotation...

Also I think Powergen Italia may have shut down the business
due to embarrassment...

[Doug Weller]

On Tue, 18 Feb 2014 09:49:05 -0700, in rec.arts.sf.written, Gutless
Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:

>Ahasuerus <ahas...@email.com> wrote in
>news:0a6fd5e1-d995-435b...@googlegroups.com:
>
>> On Monday, February 17, 2014 5:19:14 PM UTC-5, Lawrence
>> Watt-Evans wrote:
>>> On 2014-02-17 15:46:54 -0500, Greg Goss said:
>>> > jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>> >> We may be lucky to avoid negative population growth.
>>> >
>>> > Many of the Western Democracies are already there, if you
>>> > adjust your demographics by age. Canada is supposedly better
>>> > prepared to weather the boomer retirement than most because
>>> > we've brought in a lot of fairly young immigrants.
>>> >
>>> > And I think (though I don't know where to look it up) that
>>> > the former Soviet block are crashing even harder.
>>>
>>> Russia certainly is [snip]
>>
>> Not any more, at least according to the Russian government:
>
>There's a reliable source of infomration. Almost as reliable as
>Wikipedia. Almost.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Bibliography uses Wikipedia as a source,
see
http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=101392&back=,36977

and

http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=100119&back=

Wikipedia articles can be a great place to get an overview and good
sources, but we (Wikipedia) would never use our own articles as sources,
if for no other reason than that they can change.

On the other hand, it can be more accurate than, for instance, the
Britannica,
http://www.livescience.com/32950-how-accurate-is-wikipedia.html

and will generally offer more perspectives than a standard encyclopedia.

Handy Librarians' guide to its use:
http://library.blogs.delaware.gov/2013/05/05/is-wikipedia-a-reliable-source/

Doug
--
Doug Weller --
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk
Amun - co-owner/co-moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article, <le09ej$6gp$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
jdni...@panix.com "James Nicoll" caveate:
> J. Clarke <jclark...@cox.net> wrote:
>> jdni...@panix.com says...

>>>Britain becomes fairly uninhabitable every time there's an ice age so that
>>>sets a hard limit to how long any lineage has been there of, I think,
>>>about 15,000 years. The current human occupation of Britain isn't that
>>>much older than the human occupation of the New World.
>>For certain values I think. If this map is correct then the southernmost
>>parts of Britain and Ireland were ice free but there was also a good bit
>>of continental shelf accessible due to the lower sea levels.
>><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weichsel-W%C3%BCrm-Glaciation.png>
>>It being wiki of course a certain dose of salt is appropriate.
>
>The reason I hesitate to link to their demographic transition article
>is an evo psych guy has been fiddling with it.

- evo or emo?

- british trawlers (used to?) pick up a fair amount of evidence
of wildlife from what is now the southern part of the north sea,
including bits & pieces of tiger, elephant, mammoth, aurochs etc:
so there's very little doubt a vast land with enormous resources
(relative to possible human hunter-gatherer population levels)
was present until swamped by the rising sea level. and while i
don't doubt that what is now the british isles was completely
covered by ice at times, and as far south as a line from (about)
east angular to brizzle(ol) on another occasion, i can't see any
particular reason to exclude recolonisation of the british isles
as the ice retreated from the population occupying the lowlands
immediately to the south and east from which it had previously
been colonised - and with whom it'd've been genetically closely
linked.

- a fair amount of work has been done on tracing signature
mutations in both the female and the male lines of descent/
inheritance, and it appears that most of the female lines
predate the scandawegian conquests - and many, those of the
anglo-saxons, even though a vanishingly small part of our
culture appears to hark back to the celts in england (and
also, that similarly little remains in wales & scotland).

- the author of the two main books i've read on the topics
tends to over-claim what is proved by the data amassed, as
opposed to its defining upper & lower bounds to possibility,
but i still find it absorbing - shedding a fascinating light
on several areas i've been interested in for half a century.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote in

news:s349g950u9gtki6m1...@4ax.com:

Wikipedia's published editorial policy is that facts do not matter,
only the public perception of facts. They have refused to allow
edits that they know are more accurate because the edit conflicts
with the popular opinion.

To give you an example of how silly Wikipedia can be, if you had a
page, and that page gave the wrong date of birth for you, you
aren't allowed to correct it (OK, not editing your own page I can
understand), someone who knows you is not allowed to correct it
because you are not a credible source of information about
yourself, and _they are not allowed to cite your birth certificate_
as a source becase it's a primary document.

Wikipedia has its uses, but being a credit source of information on
a controversial subject isn't one of them.

[Tim McDaniel]

In article <le0kuh$hai$1...@panix2.panix.com>,

My sister was similarly puzzled about a trip my parents were proposing.
"What is the Tournamento Froses"?

--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com

[Carl Dershem]

Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> typed in
news:vc8vf954f7pcd3mnf...@4ax.com:

> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.

> Doug

Read them. Liked them. DId not love them. Not much to say yet.

cd

[Alexey Romanov]

On Sun, 16 Feb 2014 19:43:12 -0000, Michael R N Dolbear wrote:

> "James Nicoll" wrote
>
>>>In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Space, Asimov points out that,
>>>given exponential growth, even a huge number of earths will not be enough.
>
>>.> The "given exponential growth" may be unwarranted, given what we see
> happening
> on Earth now.
>
> Anything other than Zero Population Growth will eventually run out of space
> of course.
>

> There is even an argument based on not being able to exceed the speed of
> light.
>
> This implies that the radius R of human settled space cannot expand faster
> than light, so its volume can grow no faster than R squared but the human
> population for an growth rate however small will expand proportional to the
> volume R cubed so the density per unit volume will continuously increase.
>
> Which is impossible.

Only assuming you have _constant_ rate of growth _per unit of volume_,
which makes no sense. E.g. humans might for some weird reason want to live
on planets or at least in solar systems...
--
Alexey Romanov

[Doug Weller]

On Wed, 19 Feb 2014 08:49:22 -0700, in rec.arts.sf.written, Gutless

No, public perception is irrelevant. Wikipedia's policy is that sources
need to be 'reliably published'.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VERIFY (nutshell version,
"Readers must be able to check that Wikipedia articles are not just made
up. This means that all quotations and any material challenged or likely
to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using
an inline citation."
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS which offers guidelines for
sources.
But it is true that Wikiipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia, so academic
sources normally prevail over 'fringe' sources (which we still mention
usually unless they are trivial).

Birthdates are tricky. Some people present themselves as older or younger
than they really are, believe it or not. :-) If a person writes to us and
says that the birthdate is wrong, unless the source is pretty impeccable
we'd probably remove the date entirely. I've done that for a few articles
recently.

[Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy]

Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote in

news:o91jj9ps33rgl92fd...@4ax.com:

That does not jibe with known examples. If you "reliably publish"
somethining that conflicts with established wisom, it will be
rejected (rightly, under their editorial policies), even if you are
a recognized expert in the field publishing in a peer reviewed
journal.

There are examples.

The ban on primary sources is well intentioned, I guess, but
stupidly implemented.

> See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VERIFY (nutshell
> version, "Readers must be able to check that Wikipedia articles
> are not just made up. This means that all quotations and any
> material challenged or likely to be challenged must be
> attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline
> citation." and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS which
> offers guidelines for sources.
> But it is true that Wikiipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia, so
> academic sources normally prevail over 'fringe' sources (which
> we still mention usually unless they are trivial).
>
> Birthdates are tricky. Some people present themselves as older
> or younger than they really are, believe it or not. :-) If a
> person writes to us and says that the birthdate is wrong, unless
> the source is pretty impeccable we'd probably remove the date
> entirely. I've done that for a few articles recently.
>

Since primary sources are not allowed, a _birth certificate_ is not
a credible source for a date of brith on Wikipedia. And that is
just *stupid*.

[Don Kuenz]

Doug Weller <dwe...@ramtops.removethis.co.uk> wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Feb 2014 08:49:22 -0700, in rec.arts.sf.written, Gutless
> Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote:

>>Wikipedia has its uses, but being a credit source of information on
>>a controversial subject isn't one of them.
>
> No, public perception is irrelevant. Wikipedia's policy is that sources
> need to be 'reliably published'.

'Reliably published' by whom? A handful of mass media companies owned
by the powers-that-be (PTB)? Who can easily afford to hire full time
employees to continuously censor Wikipedia on their behalf? Do we "get"
a Fleet Street redux where the PTB can again assume the mantle of the
Great Adjudicator?

The PTB propaganda machine recently got busted for suspicion of
historical revisionism.

"Information about money has become almost as important as money itself"
says Wikipedia, NY Times, Wired, Forbes, MSDN, Business Week, Wall
Street Journal, CNN, Bloomberg, among others.

Yet, the actual quote is, "Information about money *is* as important as
money itself."

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22Information+about+money+is+as+important+as+money+itself.%22

That relatively short list includes CitiGroup's 2007 Annual Report where
on page 5 the current Chairman at the time, Vikram Pandit, quotes the
former Chairman, Walter Wriston.

It's curious how the more benign phrase seemed to just pop up and become
a matter of fact after the 2008 crisis. How did so many esteemed
reliable publishers get it wrong? What are they? A flock of parrots in
an echo chamber?

---

Don Kuenz

[Jon Schild]

On 2/15/2014 10:20 AM, Doug Weller wrote:
> Surprised not to see them mentioned here.
> Doug
>

Until I read this, I was unaware of any but the first. I finished the
first and may read the others, but won't get to them soon.

[Stephen Allcroft]

I quite enjoyed the first and second but in that one I felt you could 'see the join' a bit too easily, as soon as it got laugh-out loud funny it was clear Pratchett was at the helm, when it was about plots and counter plots it was clearly Baxter.