Interplanetary flight

[Peter Moylan]

I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories by a
single author. The author's introduction talks about the all-too-common
situation where something in a story is invalidated by later knowledge
[1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors and concentrate on the
story. Fair enough.

But then he has a story where a research station out near Jupiter
somewhere has a problem with one of its robots, and two experts from
Earth are called in to tackle the problem. On their second day there, we
have:

<quote>
He had apparently taken the trouble of transporting a dressing gown to
Hyper Base with him, for he was sitting in it. He put his nail scissors
down when Calvin entered.
</quote>

This, I believe, is unacceptable. He is asking us to believe that this
man has just taken an interplanetary flight, and did not have his nail
scissors confiscated. That is stretching the bounds of credulity too far.

[1] A classic example: a number of stories in the past relied on the
"fact" that Mercury always presents one face to the sun. It wasn't until
the mid-1960s, IIRC, that this was proved to be wrong.

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

[Snidely]

Peter Moylan pounded on thar keyboard to tell us

Nail scissors are fine in checked luggage. It's carryon that
confiscates them.

I expect that by the time we have a station around Jupiter, nails will
be laser-trimmed by a grooming robot.

/dps

--
"Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself
is a good thing to do, You may be a fool but you're the fool in
charge." -- Carl Reiner

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 12:24:52 AM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:

> I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories by a
> single author. The author's introduction talks about the all-too-common
> situation where something in a story is invalidated by later knowledge
> [1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors and concentrate on the
> story. Fair enough.

Asimov didn't want the Lucky Starr books to be reprinted, on those
grounds (steamy-jungle Venus, for instance). Cooler heads prevailed.

[Adam Funk]

On 2022-06-14, Snidely wrote:

> Peter Moylan pounded on thar keyboard to tell us
>> I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories by a
>> single author. The author's introduction talks about the all-too-common
>> situation where something in a story is invalidated by later knowledge
>> [1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors and concentrate on the
>> story. Fair enough.
>>
>> But then he has a story where a research station out near Jupiter
>> somewhere has a problem with one of its robots, and two experts from
>> Earth are called in to tackle the problem. On their second day there, we
>> have:
>>
>> <quote>
>> He had apparently taken the trouble of transporting a dressing gown to
>> Hyper Base with him, for he was sitting in it. He put his nail scissors
>> down when Calvin entered.
>> </quote>
>>
>> This, I believe, is unacceptable. He is asking us to believe that this
>> man has just taken an interplanetary flight, and did not have his nail
>> scissors confiscated. That is stretching the bounds of credulity too far.
>>
>> [1] A classic example: a number of stories in the past relied on the
>> "fact" that Mercury always presents one face to the sun. It wasn't until
>> the mid-1960s, IIRC, that this was proved to be wrong.
>
> Nail scissors are fine in checked luggage. It's carryon that
> confiscates them.

Or he bought a pair at the spaceport after going through security.

>
> I expect that by the time we have a station around Jupiter, nails will
> be laser-trimmed by a grooming robot.
>
> /dps
>


--

They do (play, that is), and nobody gets killed, but Metallic K.O. is
the only rock album I know where you can actually hear hurled beer
bottles breaking against guitar strings. ---Lester Bangs

[Quinn C]

* Snidely:

Two words: flying cars.

--
9/11 was pretty much the 9/11 of the falafel business.
-- Abed Nadir on Community

[Jerry Friedman]

On Monday, June 13, 2022 at 10:24:52 PM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
> I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories by a
> single author. The author's introduction talks about the all-too-common
> situation where something in a story is invalidated by later knowledge
> [1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors and concentrate on the
> story. Fair enough.
>
> But then he has a story where a research station out near Jupiter
> somewhere has a problem with one of its robots, and two experts from
> Earth are called in to tackle the problem. On their second day there, we
> have:
>
> <quote>
> He had apparently taken the trouble of transporting a dressing gown to
> Hyper Base with him, for he was sitting in it. He put his nail scissors
> down when Calvin entered.
> </quote>

How many guesses do I get about which collection it is?

> This, I believe, is unacceptable. He is asking us to believe that this
> man has just taken an interplanetary flight, and did not have his nail
> scissors confiscated. That is stretching the bounds of credulity too far.

...

Maybe there's a subatomic hyperetheric blade-neutralizing field in the
cockpit.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Ken Blake]

On Mon, 13 Jun 2022 22:10:07 -0700, Snidely <snide...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Peter Moylan pounded on thar keyboard to tell us
>> I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories by a
>> single author. The author's introduction talks about the all-too-common
>> situation where something in a story is invalidated by later knowledge
>> [1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors and concentrate on the
>> story. Fair enough.
>>
>> But then he has a story where a research station out near Jupiter
>> somewhere has a problem with one of its robots, and two experts from
>> Earth are called in to tackle the problem. On their second day there, we
>> have:
>>
>> <quote>
>> He had apparently taken the trouble of transporting a dressing gown to
>> Hyper Base with him, for he was sitting in it. He put his nail scissors
>> down when Calvin entered.
>> </quote>
>>
>> This, I believe, is unacceptable. He is asking us to believe that this
>> man has just taken an interplanetary flight, and did not have his nail
>> scissors confiscated. That is stretching the bounds of credulity too far.
>>
>> [1] A classic example: a number of stories in the past relied on the
>> "fact" that Mercury always presents one face to the sun. It wasn't until
>> the mid-1960s, IIRC, that this was proved to be wrong.
>
>Nail scissors are fine in checked luggage. It's carryon that
>confiscates them.

In interplanetary flight?

[Peter Moylan]

On 14/06/22 23:27, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Monday, June 13, 2022 at 10:24:52 PM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories
>> by a single author. The author's introduction talks about the
>> all-too-common situation where something in a story is invalidated
>> by later knowledge [1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors
>> and concentrate on the story. Fair enough.
>>
>> But then he has a story where a research station out near Jupiter
>> somewhere has a problem with one of its robots, and two experts
>> from Earth are called in to tackle the problem. On their second day
>> there, we have:
>>
>> <quote> He had apparently taken the trouble of transporting a
>> dressing gown to Hyper Base with him, for he was sitting in it. He
>> put his nail scissors down when Calvin entered. </quote>
>
> How many guesses do I get about which collection it is?

It's not obvious. The book I'm reading was published after "The Rest of
the Robots". And it contains at least one short story that I've never
read before.

[J. J. Lodder]

Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

> I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories by a
> single author. The author's introduction talks about the all-too-common
> situation where something in a story is invalidated by later knowledge
> [1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors and concentrate on the
> story. Fair enough.
>
> But then he has a story where a research station out near Jupiter
> somewhere has a problem with one of its robots, and two experts from
> Earth are called in to tackle the problem. On their second day there, we
> have:
>
> <quote>
> He had apparently taken the trouble of transporting a dressing gown to
> Hyper Base with him, for he was sitting in it. He put his nail scissors
> down when Calvin entered.
> </quote>
>
> This, I believe, is unacceptable. He is asking us to believe that this
> man has just taken an interplanetary flight, and did not have his nail
> scissors confiscated. That is stretching the bounds of credulity too far.

Why?
The whole idea that you couldn't take whatever you wanted with you
on a flight hadn't been invented yet.

He could have taken a switchblade,

Jan

[Peter T. Daniels]

Not particularly useful for trimming the nails.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 9:21:51 AM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 14/06/22 23:27, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > On Monday, June 13, 2022 at 10:24:52 PM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
> >> I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories
> >> by a single author. The author's introduction talks about the
> >> all-too-common situation where something in a story is invalidated
> >> by later knowledge [1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors
> >> and concentrate on the story. Fair enough.
> >>
> >> But then he has a story where a research station out near Jupiter
> >> somewhere has a problem with one of its robots, and two experts
> >> from Earth are called in to tackle the problem. On their second day
> >> there, we have:
> >>
> >> <quote> He had apparently taken the trouble of transporting a
> >> dressing gown to Hyper Base with him, for he was sitting in it. He
> >> put his nail scissors down when Calvin entered. </quote>
> >
> > How many guesses do I get about which collection it is?

> It's not obvious. The book I'm reading was published after "The Rest of
> the Robots".

Ah, that and /I, Robot/ were going to be my two guesses.

Another implausibility is that someone would be embarrassed almost
to the point of tears by saying a number of obscene words in front of
a woman.

> And it contains at least one short story that I've never
> read before.

"Robot Dreams"? I wonder how I missed that. Didn't I have a
subscription to IASFM in 1986? Anyway, I liked it, so thanks.

https://books.google.com/books?id=K9SCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT52

--
Jerry Friedman

[J. J. Lodder]

So you missed the point.
Tell me, do you really believe that for example Buzz Aldrin
was searched, or that he had to pass through a metal detector
before setting off for the Moon?

Jan

[Peter T. Daniels]

You're the one that seems to have missed PM's joke.

> Tell me, do you really believe that for example Buzz Aldrin
> was searched, or that he had to pass through a metal detector
> before setting off for the Moon?

Oh, fer Chrissakes, you have absolutely no sense of humor.

Look at what you wrote, look at what came before it, then
look at what I wrote after it.

[Lewis]

In message <t892if$hmp$1...@dont-email.me> Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
> [1] A classic example: a number of stories in the past relied on the
> "fact" that Mercury always presents one face to the sun. It wasn't until
> the mid-1960s, IIRC, that this was proved to be wrong.

You can date it pretty exactly, as it was between when Larry Niven WROTE
"The Coldest Place" and when it was published (Dec 1964).

Rather a famous story about that.

--
Can't seem to face up to the facts Tense and nervous and I can't
relax Can't sleep, bed's on fire Don't touch me I'm a real live
wire

[Sam Plusnet]

On 14/06/2022 06:10, Snidely wrote:
> Peter Moylan pounded on thar keyboard to tell us
>> I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories by a
>> single author. The author's introduction talks about the all-too-common
>> situation where something in a story is invalidated by later knowledge
>> [1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors and concentrate on the
>> story. Fair enough.
>>
>> But then he has a story where a research station out near Jupiter

>> Earth are called in to tackle the problem. On their second day there, we
>> have:
>>
>> <quote>
>> He had apparently taken the trouble of transporting a dressing gown to
>> Hyper Base with him, for he was sitting in it. He put his nail scissors
>> down when Calvin entered.
>> </quote>
>>
>> This, I believe, is unacceptable. He is asking us to believe that this
>> man has just taken an interplanetary flight, and did not have his nail
>> scissors confiscated. That is stretching the bounds of credulity too far.
>>
>> [1] A classic example: a number of stories in the past relied on the
>> "fact" that Mercury always presents one face to the sun. It wasn't until
>> the mid-1960s, IIRC, that this was proved to be wrong.
>
> Nail scissors are fine in checked luggage.  It's carryon that
> confiscates them.
>
> I expect that by the time we have a station around Jupiter, nails will
> be laser-trimmed by a grooming robot.
>

You want to take a robot, equipped with a laser capable of cutting
hardened nails, onto an interplanetary flight!?!

[Sam Plusnet]

I refuse to let one of those trim my nails.

[Sam Plusnet]

Not many of those on Venus.

[Quinn C]

* J. J. Lodder:

Yes, that was the point.

Flashforward (1999) by Robert J. Sawyer was a risky undertaking, set
only 10 years in the future. So very soon after, people would find out
how close it was to reality. Part of the background setting right at the
start of the book is that most retail stores have shut down, the
business taken over by only two chains, the two largest Canadian
booksellers, Chapters and Indigo. When I read it, ca. 2003, Indigo had
already bought Chapters. And even in 2022, Indigo hasn't become a buy
everything store like Amazon. It has even sold its ebooks branch, Kobo.

--
It's like a bloody war zone up there. And not in a good way.
-- Spike, Buffy S07E13

[Quinn C]

* Jerry Friedman:

> On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 9:21:51 AM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 14/06/22 23:27, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>> On Monday, June 13, 2022 at 10:24:52 PM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>> I'm currently reading a collection of short science fiction stories
>>>> by a single author. The author's introduction talks about the
>>>> all-too-common situation where something in a story is invalidated
>>>> by later knowledge [1]. He urges the reader to overlook the errors
>>>> and concentrate on the story. Fair enough.
>>>>
>>>> But then he has a story where a research station out near Jupiter
>>>> somewhere has a problem with one of its robots, and two experts
>>>> from Earth are called in to tackle the problem. On their second day
>>>> there, we have:
>>>>
>>>> <quote> He had apparently taken the trouble of transporting a
>>>> dressing gown to Hyper Base with him, for he was sitting in it. He
>>>> put his nail scissors down when Calvin entered. </quote>
>>>
>>> How many guesses do I get about which collection it is?
>
>> It's not obvious. The book I'm reading was published after "The Rest of
>> the Robots".
>
> Ah, that and /I, Robot/ were going to be my two guesses.
>
> Another implausibility is that someone would be embarrassed almost
> to the point of tears by saying a number of obscene words in front of
> a woman.

A lot of SF, even quite recent one, while set maybe centuries in the
future, or in civilizations much more technically advanced, isn't
keeping up with the changes in gender roles und understanding of gender
that have happened in the last few decades. That's something I notice a
lot, obviously.

Down to trivialities like hairstyles and dresses, future humanity and
even aliens often adhere to the gender markers of 1950s Western culture.

--
Luthor: Otis, my good man, forcing women into loving you
is the underpinning of a toxic relationship.
Otis: But you love toxic relationships.
-- Supergirl S06E17

[Snidely]

With a quizzical look, Sam Plusnet observed:

Thumbs up to that!

/dps

--
You could try being nicer and politer
> instead, and see how that works out.
-- Katy Jennison

[lar3ryca]

Trying hard to imagine having my nails trimmed by a flying car.

--
The first man to land on the moon was Neil A. That's Alien backwards.

[lar3ryca]

Two vultures at an airline ticket counter.
Lady asks, "Check your bags?"
One answers "No, they're carrion"

--
What are the two strongest days of the week?
Saturday and Sunday. All the others are weak/week days.

[lar3ryca]

Well I'll be darned! I have that in my collection, and have never read it.

[Peter Moylan]

On 15/06/22 04:53, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> Another implausibility is that someone would be embarrassed almost to
> the point of tears by saying a number of obscene words in front of a
> woman.

And that she wouldn't know some of the words.

My mental image of Susan Calvin was changed forever after I read "I,
Robot: to protect", by Mickey Zucker Reichert. Highly recommended. She's
a better writer than Asimov, and has more believable characters.

[Peter Moylan]

Yes, but he was supposed to be good at predicting the future.

>> He could have taken a switchblade,
>
> Not particularly useful for trimming the nails.

I have just trimmed one thumbnail with a Stanley knife. I have to do
that when a crack appears at the edge of the nail, and I need to
discourage it from propagating sideways. The result is aesthetically
awkward, but it's better than the pain when half of a nail suddenly rips
off.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Well of course. How else could they be sure the spacecraft wouldn't be
diverted to Mars?


--
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Adam Funk]

On 2022-06-14, Lewis wrote:

> In message <t892if$hmp$1...@dont-email.me> Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>> [1] A classic example: a number of stories in the past relied on the
>> "fact" that Mercury always presents one face to the sun. It wasn't until
>> the mid-1960s, IIRC, that this was proved to be wrong.
>
> You can date it pretty exactly, as it was between when Larry Niven WROTE
> "The Coldest Place" and when it was published (Dec 1964).
>
> Rather a famous story about that.

Not science fiction, & kind of the opposite phenomenon, but for some
reason that reminds me that John Stonehouse MP faked his own death in
the same manner as Reginald Perrin after David Nobbs had finished
writing the novel but before it was published.


--
Ambassador Trentino: "I am willing to do anything to prevent this
war."
President Firefly: "It's too late. I've already paid a month's
rent on the battlefield." _Duck Soup_

[J. J. Lodder]

I remember a story about Steve Jobs getting into a rage
when Japanese airport police confiscated some Ninja stars
that he had with him as souvenirs
while he attempted to board the Apple company plane.

They must have been afraid of him wanting to divert
his plane to Cupertino,

Jan

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Wed, 15 Jun 2022 09:57:11 +0100
Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> wrote:

> On 2022-06-14, Lewis wrote:
>
> > In message <t892if$hmp$1...@dont-email.me> Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
> >> [1] A classic example: a number of stories in the past relied on the
> >> "fact" that Mercury always presents one face to the sun. It wasn't until
> >> the mid-1960s, IIRC, that this was proved to be wrong.
> >
> > You can date it pretty exactly, as it was between when Larry Niven WROTE
> > "The Coldest Place" and when it was published (Dec 1964).
> >
> > Rather a famous story about that.
>
> Not science fiction, & kind of the opposite phenomenon, but for some
> reason that reminds me that John Stonehouse MP faked his own death in
> the same manner as Reginald Perrin after David Nobbs had finished
> writing the novel but before it was published.
>
>

And the (early 1940's?) SF story about nuclear weapons that the US gov got in a flap about, thinking the author was a leaking insider in their (real) atomic weapon development program. It was mostly just good prediction from non-classified material.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[Peter T. Daniels]

You don't trust the Three Laws?

[GordonD]

It's not just with gender issues that SF authors missed the mark in
describing future society. There's a Heinlein novel where the
protagonist takes a call on his mobile phone but explains that he can't
talk as he's in a crowd.
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

[Ken Blake]

The left thumbnail, I hope. That sounds terrible for a classical
guitar player to do on any right hand nails.

[Sam Plusnet]

On 14/06/2022 22:24, Quinn C wrote:

> A lot of SF, even quite recent one, while set maybe centuries in the
> future, or in civilizations much more technically advanced, isn't
> keeping up with the changes in gender roles und understanding of gender
> that have happened in the last few decades. That's something I notice a
> lot, obviously.
>
> Down to trivialities like hairstyles and dresses, future humanity and
> even aliens often adhere to the gender markers of 1950s Western culture.
>

I had a friend.
She joined the Communist party as a young girl - not too long after the
Russian revolution. She and the other party members were entirely
convinced that the victory of Socialism was inevitable, and that
Capitalism would be defeated by its own inherent contradictions.
They held those beliefs through all the events of the 1930s, 40s, 50s,
60s, 70s...

She died in 2000, having seen how the great experiment of Socialism
actually played out.

You seem convinced that attitudes towards gender can only continue to
advance in one direction.
Your convictions often remind me of her.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 3:24:05 PM UTC-6, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> On 14/06/2022 22:24, Quinn C wrote:
> > A lot of SF, even quite recent one, while set maybe centuries in the
> > future, or in civilizations much more technically advanced, isn't
> > keeping up with the changes in gender roles und understanding of gender
> > that have happened in the last few decades. That's something I notice a
> > lot, obviously.
> >
> > Down to trivialities like hairstyles and dresses, future humanity and
> > even aliens often adhere to the gender markers of 1950s Western culture.
> >
> I had a friend.
> She joined the Communist party as a young girl - not too long after the
> Russian revolution. She and the other party members were entirely
> convinced that the victory of Socialism was inevitable, and that
> Capitalism would be defeated by its own inherent contradictions.
> They held those beliefs through all the events of the 1930s, 40s, 50s,
> 60s, 70s...
>
> She died in 2000, having seen how the great experiment of Socialism
> actually played out.

...

Of course, for true believers, the victory of Socialism is still imminent.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 7:39:19 AM UTC-6, GordonD wrote:
> On 14/06/2022 22:24, Quinn C wrote:

...

> > A lot of SF, even quite recent one, while set maybe centuries in the
> > future, or in civilizations much more technically advanced, isn't
> > keeping up with the changes in gender roles und understanding of
> > gender that have happened in the last few decades. That's something I
> > notice a lot, obviously.
> >
> > Down to trivialities like hairstyles and dresses, future humanity
> > and even aliens often adhere to the gender markers of 1950s Western
> > culture.
> >
> It's not just with gender issues that SF authors missed the mark in
> describing future society. There's a Heinlein novel where the
> protagonist takes a call on his mobile phone but explains that he can't
> talk as he's in a crowd.

:-)

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 3:24:15 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
...

> A lot of SF, even quite recent one, while set maybe centuries in the
> future, or in civilizations much more technically advanced, isn't
> keeping up with the changes in gender roles und understanding of gender
> that have happened in the last few decades. That's something I notice a
> lot, obviously.
>
> Down to trivialities like hairstyles and dresses, future humanity and
> even aliens often adhere to the gender markers of 1950s Western culture.

I'll take your word for it. I'm not keeping up with SF, and what I've read lately
hasn't been like that, e.g., the Ann Leckie books you mentioned in another
thread.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter Moylan]

On 15/06/22 23:39, GordonD wrote:
>
> It's not just with gender issues that SF authors missed the mark in
> describing future society. There's a Heinlein novel where the
> protagonist takes a call on his mobile phone but explains that he
> can't talk as he's in a crowd.

Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about everyone
smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.

[Peter Moylan]

On 16/06/22 01:59, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Jun 2022 15:31:23 +1000, Peter Moylan
> <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>> On 15/06/22 03:52, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 12:16:50 PM UTC-4, J. J. Lodder
>>> wrote:

>>>> He could have taken a switchblade,
>>>
>>> Not particularly useful for trimming the nails.
>>
>> I have just trimmed one thumbnail with a Stanley knife.
>
> The left thumbnail, I hope. That sounds terrible for a classical
> guitar player to do on any right hand nails.

This time it's the left thumbnail, but I have the same problem now and
then on the right hand. It's a side-effect of psoriasis. The point of
the Stanley knife operation is to remove only one side of the nail,
retaining the other side for as long as possible. That is, I carve off
the damaged part in order to protect the rest of the nail.

At present I can't play guitar properly, but that's for a different
reason. A couple of weeks ago we went to Melbourne, with a lot of moving
around from place to place. Frequent moving of suitacases kept putting
my nails at risk, and I snapped off the end of the brittle ones.

[Quinn C]

* Sam Plusnet:

The direction hasn't changed greatly in the last 200 years, and the
differences in attitude between the generations alive now suggest an
acceleration of change in that same direction.

I can't predict anything centuries into the future, but even if the
direction of change should flip one day, it's very unlikely that it'd go
back to exactly where it was at any time in the past in one specific
civilization that likely wouldn't be around any more ("she'll be
president of AmeriChina one day", to quote a TV show I watched the other
day.)

Regarding the matter at hand, as I said, it's Western civilization's
gender markers of 1950, or maybe 1980 for some younger authors, that are
at work in their futures, not the ones of the Filipinos or the Maori, or
the ones of 1600 or of 50 BCE.

Also, I'm cautiously advancing the theory that the main reason for said
development is that procreation for the survival of humankind has lost a
lot of urgency, so people don't have to be squeezed into roles that
ensure the making of babies any more. Advances in medical technology are
likely to add to that factor. Should most of humanity and most of
technology be destroyed, that'd certainly disrupt my "plans", but I'm
still optimistic that that's not all that likely, and that's not the
kind of future the books and TV shows depict that I was talking about.

--
Quinn C
My pronouns are they/them
(or other gender-neutral ones)

[Quinn C]

* Jerry Friedman:

When it comes to hairstyles, I may be thinking mainly of movies and TV,
as most books don't describe hairstyles in detail. Think Star Trek. They
also quickly abandoned their early experiment with men in dresses.

But there was an especially blatant example of a book regarding clothes
that alerted me to this matter: in that book series written by two young
women, probably born in the 1980s, women are quite equal in the future,
do all the jobs - the political leader is surrounded by female assassins
-, but the women, and only the women, wear, according to the latest
fashion, heavy dresses that get in the way when running. It just doesn't
make sense, and I'm afraid they made it so because it's "romantic".
(The Starbound trilogy, by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, 2013-15.
It's officially Young Adult, but doesn't fit the category very well in
my view; the books are too long, and the principal characters, while
nominally around 20 years old, act in ways that make that age
implausible to me.)

[lar3ryca]

On 2022-06-15 17:28, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 15/06/22 23:39, GordonD wrote:
>>
>> It's not just with gender issues that SF authors missed the mark in
>> describing future society. There's a Heinlein novel where the
>> protagonist takes a call on his mobile phone but explains that he
>> can't talk as he's in a crowd.
>
> Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about everyone
> smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.

Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
smoking in the warnings.

--
A Roman walks into a bar. He holds up two fingers and says
"Give me five beers"

[bil...@shaw.ca]

On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 4:28:14 PM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 15/06/22 23:39, GordonD wrote:
> >
> > It's not just with gender issues that SF authors missed the mark in
> > describing future society. There's a Heinlein novel where the
> > protagonist takes a call on his mobile phone but explains that he
> > can't talk as he's in a crowd.
> Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about everyone
> smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.

The Golden Age of Science fiction was also the golden age of smoking.
Everybody smoked, including many of the prominent SF writers, and most
of them couldn't resist having their characters be smokers as well.

bill

[Mark Brader]

Peter Moylan:

>> Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about everyone
>> smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.

William Boei:

> The Golden Age of Science fiction was also the golden age of smoking.

> Everybody smoked, including many of the prominent SF writers...

In his 1968 story "The Holmes-Ginsbook Device", Asimov had a
character invent a better way of lighting cigarettes. The normal
way, of course, to inhale sharply through the cigarette to trigger
the igniter built into it; but people kept being burned by the thing.
(That's only the beginning; the title invention is something else again.)

When a better device is invented -- the igno-splint -- it is suggested
that "surely this great invention is a match for any other this great
Century has seen", and so it gets a shorter name.


In her 1995 novel "Remake", Connie Willis imagines a future in which
-- among other things -- old movies are digitally edited to remove
all references to smoking.
--
Mark Brader | "But... soon enough he'd be a master writer,
Toronto | licensed to... smoke cigarettes in public."
m...@vex.net | --Fritz Leiber, "The Silver Eggheads"

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[occam]

On 16/06/2022 06:06, lar3ryca wrote:
> On 2022-06-15 17:28, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 15/06/22 23:39, GordonD wrote:
>>>
>>> It's not just with gender issues that SF authors missed the mark in
>>> describing future society. There's a Heinlein novel where the
>>> protagonist takes a call on his mobile phone but explains that he
>>> can't talk as he's in a crowd.
>>
>> Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about everyone
>> smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.
>
> Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
> themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
> smoking in the warnings.
>

Which channel? I have seen 'language', 'violence' and others, but never
'smoking' on Netflix. Do you think we will get warnings for 'non-binary
gender pronouns' anytime soon?

[Lewis]

In message <jtydnTTeps66Ujf_...@giganews.com> Mark Brader <m...@vex.net> wrote:

> In her 1995 novel "Remake", Connie Willis imagines a future in which
> -- among other things -- old movies are digitally edited to remove
> all references to smoking.

Didn't Spielberg do this?

--
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
Pinky: I think so, Brain. But if I put on two tutu's, would I really
be wearing a four-by-four?
Brain: Why do I even bother asking?
Pinky: I dunno, Brain. Maybe it's all part of some huge, cosmic
plot formula!

[occam]

On 16/06/2022 03:27, Quinn C wrote:

>
> When it comes to hairstyles, I may be thinking mainly of movies and TV,
> as most books don't describe hairstyles in detail. Think Star Trek. They
> also quickly abandoned their early experiment with men in dresses.
>

Not in Scotland they did not. Think 'Braveheart', 'Highlander', 'Geodie'
and other films. Kilts galore, although they do come accompanied by
full-on beards. Not exactly what you hoped for, I suspect.

[J. J. Lodder]

Lewis <g.k...@kreme.dont-email.me> wrote:

> In message <jtydnTTeps66Ujf_...@giganews.com> Mark Brader:

>
> > In her 1995 novel "Remake", Connie Willis imagines a future in which
> > -- among other things -- old movies are digitally edited to remove
> > all references to smoking.
>
> Didn't Spielberg do this?

Lucky Luke had to give up smoking too.
So he bites a straw nowadays,

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

Peter Moylan <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

> On 16/06/22 01:59, Ken Blake wrote:
> > On Wed, 15 Jun 2022 15:31:23 +1000, Peter Moylan
> > <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
> >> On 15/06/22 03:52, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>> On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 12:16:50 PM UTC-4, J. J. Lodder
> >>> wrote:
>
> >>>> He could have taken a switchblade,
> >>>
> >>> Not particularly useful for trimming the nails.
> >>
> >> I have just trimmed one thumbnail with a Stanley knife.
> >
> > The left thumbnail, I hope. That sounds terrible for a classical
> > guitar player to do on any right hand nails.
>
> This time it's the left thumbnail, but I have the same problem now and
> then on the right hand. It's a side-effect of psoriasis. The point of
> the Stanley knife operation is to remove only one side of the nail,
> retaining the other side for as long as possible. That is, I carve off
> the damaged part in order to protect the rest of the nail.
>
> At present I can't play guitar properly, but that's for a different
> reason. A couple of weeks ago we went to Melbourne, with a lot of moving
> around from place to place. Frequent moving of suitacases kept putting
> my nails at risk, and I snapped off the end of the brittle ones.

It is actually quite possible to trim nails with a knife,
or dagger even, if it is really sharp.
From a misspent youth I remember some goon from a film noir
doing just that, to intimidate a potential victim,

Jan

[Jerry Friedman]

The subject was science fiction set in future centuries, which I don't
think includes those movies.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter T. Daniels]

"Geodie" could be a remake of *Journey to the Center of the Earth*.

[Quinn C]

* Jerry Friedman:

And the specific sentence referred specifically to Star Trek.

<https://screenrant.com/star-trek-tng-miniskirt-skant-dress-uniform-men/>

Besides, while I don't expect anyone to know "skant", I think everyone
should have the fashion vocabulary to recognize that kilts aren't
dresses.

--
Nancy had bitten her tongue to keep from asking any questions.
She was deeply afraid that Lundy would attempt to answer them,
and then her head might actually explode.
-- Seanan McGuire, Every Heart a Doorway

[lar3ryca]

It was on Amazon Prime.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit. There's no end to the current foolishness.

Warning! Contains scenes of binary-gendered signage on washroom doors!!!

The news today reported that Health Canada is planning to add a
front-of-pack warning on ground beef about containing high levels of
saturated fats. The REALLY stupid thing about it is that a very lean
roast does not have high levels of said fat, and will not require a
warning label, but grind it and package it, and it does.

--
When I was young there were only 25 letters in the alphabet.
Nobody knew Y.

[Adam Funk]

On 2022-06-16, lar3ryca wrote:

> On 2022-06-15 17:28, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 15/06/22 23:39, GordonD wrote:
>>>
>>> It's not just with gender issues that SF authors missed the mark in
>>> describing future society. There's a Heinlein novel where the
>>> protagonist takes a call on his mobile phone but explains that he
>>> can't talk as he's in a crowd.
>>
>> Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about everyone
>> smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.
>
> Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
> themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
> smoking in the warnings.

_Duck Soup_ is rated G in the USA & U in the UK. The IMDB parents'
guide warns:

As usual, Groucho's character is seen with a cigar almost in every
scene, sometimes actually smoking.

A couple of characters smoke a cigar near the beginning of the
film. Meant to be comical.


--
I only regret that I have but one shirt to give for my country.
---Abbie Hoffman

[Richard Heathfield]

On 16/06/2022 3:49 pm, Stefan Ram wrote:

> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> writes:
>> _Duck Soup_ is rated G in the USA & U in the UK. The IMDB parents'
>> guide warns:
>> As usual, Groucho's character is seen with a cigar almost in every
>> scene, sometimes actually smoking.
>

> I think film censorship should not be so strict.
> Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Well played, sir.

Do these four-year-olds who come up with these trigger warnings
have any idea how patronising they are being? I just wish someone
would tell them to go play somewhere quieter.

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 10:03:32 AM UTC-4, lar3ryca wrote:

> The news today reported that Health Canada is planning to add a
> front-of-pack warning on ground beef about containing high levels of
> saturated fats. The REALLY stupid thing about it is that a very lean
> roast does not have high levels of said fat, and will not require a
> warning label, but grind it and package it, and it does.

Maybe lar3 is unaware that when beef is ground for use in recipes,
varying amounts of fat are added according to the specific purpose
(recipe), and at any normal butcher counter you can get ground beef
labeled with different percentages of "lean."

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Here is a very different example, but illustrating the same idiotic
thinking. Natural potassium is radioactive, to about the same degree as
uranium-238 ("ordinary" natural uranium). Most of the time we don't
worry about it, and there is nothing we could do about it anyway. About
40 years the people in the UK who define safety standards were deciding
the level of radoactivity that would require a Home Office licence to
use particular substances in experiments. Pure metallic potassium fell
just on the wrong side of the proposed limit, whereas potassium
hydroxide was just on the right side. So, if you wanted to use
potassium hydroxide that was OK without informing the Home Office, but
if you wanted to use potassium metal it wasn't. Fortunately wiser
counsels prevailed and the proposed standard was never established.
Although potassium metal is indeed very dangerous, its radioactivity is
the least of the problems.


--
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Ken Blake]

On 16 Jun 2022 14:49:08 GMT, r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de (Stefan Ram)

wrote:

>Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> writes:

>>_Duck Soup_ is rated G in the USA & U in the UK. The IMDB parents'
>>guide warns:
>>As usual, Groucho's character is seen with a cigar almost in every
>>scene, sometimes actually smoking.
>

> I think film censorship should not be so strict.
> Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

What This Country Needs is a Really Good Five-Cent Cigar

[Ken Blake]

On Thu, 16 Jun 2022 09:36:12 +1000, Peter Moylan

<pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 16/06/22 01:59, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 Jun 2022 15:31:23 +1000, Peter Moylan
>> <pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 15/06/22 03:52, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 12:16:50 PM UTC-4, J. J. Lodder
>>>> wrote:
>
>>>>> He could have taken a switchblade,
>>>>
>>>> Not particularly useful for trimming the nails.
>>>
>>> I have just trimmed one thumbnail with a Stanley knife.
>>
>> The left thumbnail, I hope. That sounds terrible for a classical
>> guitar player to do on any right hand nails.
>
>This time it's the left thumbnail, but I have the same problem now and
>then on the right hand. It's a side-effect of psoriasis. The point of
>the Stanley knife operation is to remove only one side of the nail,
>retaining the other side for as long as possible. That is, I carve off
>the damaged part in order to protect the rest of the nail.
>
>At present I can't play guitar properly, but that's for a different
>reason. A couple of weeks ago we went to Melbourne, with a lot of moving
>around from place to place. Frequent moving of suitacases kept putting
>my nails at risk, and I snapped off the end of the brittle ones.

Something similar has happened to me several times. I've tried various
repairs, some were done by professionals, some by me. None of them
lasted more than a few days.

[Lewis]

In message <cigar-2022...@ram.dialup.fu-berlin.de> Stefan Ram <r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> writes:

>>_Duck Soup_ is rated G in the USA & U in the UK. The IMDB parents'
>>guide warns:
>>As usual, Groucho's character is seen with a cigar almost in every
>>scene, sometimes actually smoking.

> I think film censorship should not be so strict.
> Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Some parents thing "good parenting" is "suppress all knowledge of the
world because that is easier than actually talking to children."



--
You are twisted and sick; I like that in a person.

[Lewis]

In message <jh15ll...@mid.individual.net> Athel Cornish-Bowden <acor...@imm.cnrs.fr> wrote:
> On 2022-06-16 14:03:26 +0000, lar3ryca said:

>> On 2022-06-16 00:53, occam wrote:
>>> On 16/06/2022 06:06, lar3ryca wrote:
>>>> On 2022-06-15 17:28, Peter Moylan wrote:
>>>>> On 15/06/22 23:39, GordonD wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's not just with gender issues that SF authors missed the mark in
>>>>>> describing future society. There's a Heinlein novel where the
>>>>>> protagonist takes a call on his mobile phone but explains that he
>>>>>> can't talk as he's in a crowd.
>>>>>
>>>>> Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about everyone
>>>>> smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.
>>>>
>>>> Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
>>>> themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
>>>> smoking in the warnings.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Which channel? I have seen 'language', 'violence' and others, but never
>>> 'smoking' on Netflix. Do you think we will get warnings for 'non-binary
>>> gender pronouns' anytime soon?
>>
>> It was on Amazon Prime.
>>
>> It wouldn't surprise me a bit. There's no end to the current foolishness.
>>
>> Warning! Contains scenes of binary-gendered signage on washroom doors!!!

Very important, since it is illegal to talk about gender in Florida
where children are present.

--
No boom *today*. Boom tomorrow. Always boom tomorrow.
<gestures widely> Boom. - Susan Ivanova

[J. J. Lodder]

Sure, they should write that ludicrous Winston character
out of history too,

Jan

[Sam Plusnet]

What happens when the offspring of these parents?
Is there a sanitized world somewhere in which all those 'dangers' do not
exist?

[Sam Plusnet]

If I haven't made it clear elsewhere, I would much prefer you to be
proven right than wrong - provided that it leads to a world where there
is greater tolerance.

[Jerry Friedman]

Hey, they can use the famous photo of him where he doesn't have a cigar--
because Yousuf Karsh swiped it.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/the-day-winston-churchill-lost-his-cigar-180947770/

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 7:27:09 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
> * Jerry Friedman:
> > On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 3:24:15 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
> > ...
> >
> >> A lot of SF, even quite recent one, while set maybe centuries in the
> >> future, or in civilizations much more technically advanced, isn't
> >> keeping up with the changes in gender roles und understanding of gender
> >> that have happened in the last few decades. That's something I notice a
> >> lot, obviously.
> >>
> >> Down to trivialities like hairstyles and dresses, future humanity and
> >> even aliens often adhere to the gender markers of 1950s Western culture.
> >
> > I'll take your word for it. I'm not keeping up with SF, and what I've read lately
> > hasn't been like that, e.g., the Ann Leckie books you mentioned in another
> > thread.

> When it comes to hairstyles, I may be thinking mainly of movies and TV,
> as most books don't describe hairstyles in detail. Think Star Trek. They
> also quickly abandoned their early experiment with men in dresses.

Yes, there's a limit to how much you can confuse people in a movie or
TV show intended for a wide audience. You could even make a case that
the makers of /Star Trek/ assumed that everybody would show reliable
signs of gender in clothes and grooming (as everybody but a few SF people
assumed) and "translated" them into signs that viewers would recognize.

> But there was an especially blatant example of a book regarding clothes
> that alerted me to this matter: in that book series written by two young
> women, probably born in the 1980s, women are quite equal in the future,
> do all the jobs - the political leader is surrounded by female assassins

Assassinating the leader's enemies, not the leader, right?

> -, but the women, and only the women, wear, according to the latest
> fashion, heavy dresses that get in the way when running. It just doesn't
> make sense, and I'm afraid they made it so because it's "romantic".

OK, that's a bit silly.

> (The Starbound trilogy, by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, 2013-15.
> It's officially Young Adult, but doesn't fit the category very well in
> my view; the books are too long, and the principal characters, while
> nominally around 20 years old, act in ways that make that age
> implausible to me.)

They're too mature or not mature enough?

--
Jerry Friedman

[Quinn C]

* Peter T. Daniels:

Hardly. The pre-packaged ones are labeled at four levels here (regular -
medium - lean - extra lean).

<https://canadabeef.ca/ground-beef-know-how/>

So the question is, would lean or extra lean ground beef really get the
label?

--
- You all packed?
- Vagabond shoes and all. And pepper spray. For if we run into
that Trump character.
-- Veronica Mars, S02E22 (2006)

[Quinn C]

* occam:

Maybe in countries where they still hang gay men. Is that the kind of
company you wish to be associated with?

--
Doris did not usually leave men to port and cigars except
at large,formal dinners because Frank was a man who often
found other men's company gross and tedious.
-- Jane Rule, This Is Not For You, p.93

[Quinn C]

* lar3ryca:

> On 2022-06-15 17:28, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 15/06/22 23:39, GordonD wrote:
>>>
>>> It's not just with gender issues that SF authors missed the mark in
>>> describing future society. There's a Heinlein novel where the
>>> protagonist takes a call on his mobile phone but explains that he
>>> can't talk as he's in a crowd.
>>
>> Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about everyone
>> smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.
>
> Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
> themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
> smoking in the warnings.

Podcasts, which usually don't just go with broad categories, can be much
more specific. From a recent episode:

The episode will include period-typical intersexism, transphobia,
homophobia and misogyny. It also includes in-depth discussion of
medical procedures, including discussion of bodies and genitalia,
and a brief mention of an invasive medical examination which
will include the use of anesthetic without consent. It will also
contain brief mentions of harassment by the press, sex and death
in a car accident. Lastly, it will contain misgendering and
outdated language for trans and intersex people.

--
Novels and romances ... when habitually indulged in, exert a
disastrous influence on the nervous system, sufficient to explain
that frequency of hysteria and nervous disease which we find
among the highest classes. -- E.J. Tilt

[Jerry Friedman]

According to this, the reason for the discrepancy is that no whole raw cuts
of meat are required to have nutritional labels of any kind, but ground
meat is. It doesn't give the reason for that.

(Also milk and butter are exempt from the labeling requirement. I
find it very odd that ground beef is considered more processed or
packaged than butter.)

https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/manitoba-s-beef-industry-calling-on-health-canada-for-exemption-to-saturated-fat-warning-label-1.5941065

--
Jerry Friedman

[Jerry Friedman]

On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 5:51:32 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
> * lar3ryca:
...

> > Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
> > themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
> > smoking in the warnings.

> Podcasts, which usually don't just go with broad categories, can be much
> more specific. From a recent episode:
>
> The episode will include period-typical intersexism, transphobia,
> homophobia and misogyny. It also includes in-depth discussion of
> medical procedures, including discussion of bodies and genitalia,
> and a brief mention of an invasive medical examination which
> will include the use of anesthetic without consent. It will also
> contain brief mentions of harassment by the press, sex and death
> in a car accident. Lastly, it will contain misgendering and
> outdated language for trans and intersex people.

What's intersexism? Should "will include" be "included"? And
"harassment by the press, sex and death in a car accident" seems
a strange combination.

(ObSerialComma: I did know someone whose life ended with
sex and death in a car accident.)

--
Jerry Friedman

[Quinn C]

* Jerry Friedman:

> On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 5:51:32 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
>> * lar3ryca:
> ...
>
>>> Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
>>> themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
>>> smoking in the warnings.
>
>> Podcasts, which usually don't just go with broad categories, can be much
>> more specific. From a recent episode:
>>
>> The episode will include period-typical intersexism, transphobia,
>> homophobia and misogyny. It also includes in-depth discussion of
>> medical procedures, including discussion of bodies and genitalia,
>> and a brief mention of an invasive medical examination which
>> will include the use of anesthetic without consent. It will also
>> contain brief mentions of harassment by the press, sex and death
>> in a car accident. Lastly, it will contain misgendering and
>> outdated language for trans and intersex people.
>
> What's intersexism?

I hadn't heard it before, either, but it seems obvious that it means
prejudice against intersex people.

> Should "will include" be "included"?

Not if you read the warnings, rather sensibly, before the main chapter,
and not after. It was strange that they changed to the present tense
("includes") just once, though.

> And
> "harassment by the press, sex and death in a car accident" seems
> a strange combination.
>
> (ObSerialComma: I did know someone whose life ended with
> sex and death in a car accident.)

I should have put another comma. But even so, it remains a strange
enumeration. I think I'd have inserted "as well as" or some other,
stronger delimiter.

--
Behold, honored adversaries,
We are the instruments of your joyful death.
Consu war chant -- J. Scalzi, Old Man's War

[Quinn C]

* Jerry Friedman:

> On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 5:51:32 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
>> * lar3ryca:
> ...
>
>>> Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
>>> themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
>>> smoking in the warnings.
>
>> Podcasts, which usually don't just go with broad categories, can be much
>> more specific. From a recent episode:
>>
>> The episode will include period-typical intersexism, transphobia,
>> homophobia and misogyny. It also includes in-depth discussion of
>> medical procedures, including discussion of bodies and genitalia,
>> and a brief mention of an invasive medical examination which
>> will include the use of anesthetic without consent. It will also
>> contain brief mentions of harassment by the press, sex and death
>> in a car accident. Lastly, it will contain misgendering and
>> outdated language for trans and intersex people.
>
> What's intersexism?

I hadn't heard it before, either, but it seems obvious that it means
prejudice against intersex people.

> Should "will include" be "included"?

Not if you read the warnings, rather sensibly, before the main chapter,
and not after. It was strange that they changed to the present tense
("includes") just once, though.

[Added:] Oh, I see now, you meant the second "will include". I can't
speak on that. It seems that almost any tense can be defended.

> And
> "harassment by the press, sex and death in a car accident" seems
> a strange combination.
>
> (ObSerialComma: I did know someone whose life ended with
> sex and death in a car accident.)

[Quinn C]

* Quinn C:

> * Jerry Friedman:
>
>> On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 5:51:32 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
>>> * lar3ryca:
>> ...
>>
>>>> Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
>>>> themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
>>>> smoking in the warnings.
>>
>>> Podcasts, which usually don't just go with broad categories, can be much
>>> more specific. From a recent episode:
>>>
>>> The episode will include period-typical intersexism, transphobia,
>>> homophobia and misogyny. It also includes in-depth discussion of
>>> medical procedures, including discussion of bodies and genitalia,
>>> and a brief mention of an invasive medical examination which
>>> will include the use of anesthetic without consent. It will also
>>> contain brief mentions of harassment by the press, sex and death
>>> in a car accident. Lastly, it will contain misgendering and
>>> outdated language for trans and intersex people.
>>
>> What's intersexism?
>
> I hadn't heard it before, either, but it seems obvious that it means
> prejudice against intersex people.

Wiktionary has "intersexism" with the meaning "the state of being
intersex". But that doesn't seem to fit the above context.

In fact, intersexuality featured only in the capacity that it was
claimed by someone (without convincing proof) in order to justify the
wish to undergo medical transition, as it often happened in the past.

--
Quinn C
My pronouns are they/them
(or other gender-neutral ones)

[Jerry Friedman]

On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 6:22:16 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
> * Jerry Friedman:
> > On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 5:51:32 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
> >> * lar3ryca:
> > ...
> >
> >>> Just watched a film this evening. The warnings were language, adult
> >>> themes, and smoking., anmd this was not the first time i have seen
> >>> smoking in the warnings.
> >
> >> Podcasts, which usually don't just go with broad categories, can be much
> >> more specific. From a recent episode:
> >>
> >> The episode will include period-typical intersexism, transphobia,
> >> homophobia and misogyny. It also includes in-depth discussion of
> >> medical procedures, including discussion of bodies and genitalia,
> >> and a brief mention of an invasive medical examination which
> >> will include the use of anesthetic without consent. It will also
> >> contain brief mentions of harassment by the press, sex and death
> >> in a car accident. Lastly, it will contain misgendering and
> >> outdated language for trans and intersex people.
> >
> > What's intersexism?

> I hadn't heard it before, either, but it seems obvious that it means
> prejudice against intersex people.

I guess that's not altogether unobvious.

> > Should "will include" be "included"?

> Not if you read the warnings, rather sensibly, before the main chapter,
> and not after. It was strange that they changed to the present tense
> ("includes") just once, though.
> [Added:] Oh, I see now, you meant the second "will include". I can't
> speak on that. It seems that almost any tense can be defended.

I should have noticed there was more than one. To me, that has to
be past tense, because the examination must surely have taken place
already, and that's what included the anesthesia without consent.

> > And
> > "harassment by the press, sex and death in a car accident" seems
> > a strange combination.
> >
> > (ObSerialComma: I did know someone whose life ended with
> > sex and death in a car accident.)

> I should have put another comma. But even so, it remains a strange
> enumeration. I think I'd have inserted "as well as" or some other,
> stronger delimiter.

Yes, that's what I was thinking.

--
Jerry Friedman

[lar3ryca]

On 2022-06-16 16:32, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter T. Daniels:
>
>> On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 10:03:32 AM UTC-4, lar3ryca wrote:
>>
>>> The news today reported that Health Canada is planning to add a
>>> front-of-pack warning on ground beef about containing high levels of
>>> saturated fats. The REALLY stupid thing about it is that a very lean
>>> roast does not have high levels of said fat, and will not require a
>>> warning label, but grind it and package it, and it does.
>>
>> Maybe lar3 is unaware that when beef is ground for use in recipes,
>> varying amounts of fat are added according to the specific purpose
>> (recipe), and at any normal butcher counter you can get ground beef
>> labeled with different percentages of "lean."
>
> Hardly. The pre-packaged ones are labeled at four levels here (regular -
> medium - lean - extra lean).
>
> <https://canadabeef.ca/ground-beef-know-how/>
>
> So the question is, would lean or extra lean ground beef really get the
> label?
>

Apparently so. It's a hot topic of discussion here in beef country. I'll
let you know more as I hear about it.

--
The past tense of William Shakespeare is "WouldIwas Shookspeared".

[occam]

The obvious reason is that once you mince the meat, you open up the
possibility of adding all kinds of unknown ingredients (other types
meat) into the mix. We are talking haggis-grade ingredients, which are
difficult to identify, except by food experts.

[J. J. Lodder]

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

> * Jerry Friedman:
>

> > On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 3:24:15 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
> > ...
> >
> >> A lot of SF, even quite recent one, while set maybe centuries in the
> >> future, or in civilizations much more technically advanced, isn't
> >> keeping up with the changes in gender roles und understanding of gender
> >> that have happened in the last few decades. That's something I notice a
> >> lot, obviously.
> >>
> >> Down to trivialities like hairstyles and dresses, future humanity and
> >> even aliens often adhere to the gender markers of 1950s Western culture.
> >
> > I'll take your word for it. I'm not keeping up with SF, and what I've
> > read lately hasn't been like that, e.g., the Ann Leckie books you
> > mentioned in another thread.
>
> When it comes to hairstyles, I may be thinking mainly of movies and TV,
> as most books don't describe hairstyles in detail. Think Star Trek. They
> also quickly abandoned their early experiment with men in dresses.

So they added a miniskirt, to put long legs on display.
Same with a Well's Time Machine movie: In the far far future
the Time Traveller finds Eloi girls dressed
in typical English miniskirts from the sixties.

The future always looks quite dated, in less than a generation,

Jan

[J. J. Lodder]

Kind of hard to elegantly draw the hidden dagger from the garter belt,

Jan

[Adam Funk]

And made him scowl!

In the opposite direction, Sergio Leone supposedly made Clint Eastwood
smoke Tuscan cigars (which he didn't like) because they made him
grimace in a way that Leone liked for those films.


--
I was born, lucky me, in a land that I love.
Though I'm poor, I am free.
When I grow I shall fight; for this land I shall die.
May the sun never set. ---The Kinks

[GordonD]

On 16/06/2022 07:35, Mark Brader wrote:
> Peter Moylan:

>>> Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about
>>> everyone smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.
>

> William Boei:
>> The Golden Age of Science fiction was also the golden age of
>> smoking. Everybody smoked, including many of the prominent SF
>> writers...
>
> In his 1968 story "The Holmes-Ginsbook Device", Asimov had a
> character invent a better way of lighting cigarettes. The normal
> way, of course, to inhale sharply through the cigarette to trigger
> the igniter built into it; but people kept being burned by the
> thing. (That's only the beginning; the title invention is something
> else again.)
>
> When a better device is invented -- the igno-splint -- it is
> suggested that "surely this great invention is a match for any other
> this great Century has seen", and so it gets a shorter name.
>
>
> In her 1995 novel "Remake", Connie Willis imagines a future in which
> -- among other things -- old movies are digitally edited to remove
> all references to smoking.

Arthur C Clarke beat her to it - in his 1990 novel 'The Ghost from the
Grand Banks' the backstory of one of the characters is just this.
--
Gordon Davie
Edinburgh, Scotland

[GordonD]

On 16/06/2022 08:02, Lewis wrote:

> In message <jtydnTTeps66Ujf_...@giganews.com> Mark Brader <m...@vex.net> wrote:
>
>> In her 1995 novel "Remake", Connie Willis imagines a future in which
>> -- among other things -- old movies are digitally edited to remove
>> all references to smoking.
>

> Didn't Spielberg do this?
>

'ET' was digitally edited to replace the Evil Guvment Agents' guns with
walkie-talkies.

[occam]

The past too. Even the present looks dated, between generations. :-)

[J. J. Lodder]

Mark Brader <m...@vex.net> wrote:

> Peter Moylan:
> >> Something I notice in Asimov's stories is that just about everyone
> >> smokes, and there are ashtrays even in hospitals.
>
> William Boei:
> > The Golden Age of Science fiction was also the golden age of smoking.
> > Everybody smoked, including many of the prominent SF writers...
>
> In his 1968 story "The Holmes-Ginsbook Device", Asimov had a
> character invent a better way of lighting cigarettes. The normal
> way, of course, to inhale sharply through the cigarette to trigger
> the igniter built into it; but people kept being burned by the thing.
> (That's only the beginning; the title invention is something else again.)
>
> When a better device is invented -- the igno-splint -- it is suggested
> that "surely this great invention is a match for any other this great
> Century has seen", and so it gets a shorter name.
>
>

> In her 1995 novel "Remake", Connie Willis imagines a future in which
> -- among other things -- old movies are digitally edited to remove
> all references to smoking.

Hardly original. Already in '1984' the 'enemies of the people'
are edited out of photographs where they appear with Big Brother.
This was a reference to real life Stalinist practice
going back to well before WWII,

Jan

[CDB]

On 6/16/2022 4:54 PM, Sam Plusnet wrote:

> Lewis wrote:
>> Stefan Ram <r...@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>>> Adam Funk <a24...@ducksburg.com> writes:

>>>> _Duck Soup_ is rated G in the USA & U in the UK. The IMDB
>>>> parents' guide warns: As usual, Groucho's character is seen
>>>> with a cigar almost in every scene, sometimes actually
>>>> smoking.

>>> I think film censorship should not be so strict. Sometimes a
>>> cigar is just a cigar.

>> Some parents thing "good parenting" is "suppress all knowledge of
>> the world because that is easier than actually talking to
>> children."

> What happens when the offspring of these parents?

Spring off?

> Is there a sanitized world somewhere in which all those 'dangers' do
> not exist?

It worked out okay in the end for little Siddharta.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

There were not a lot of Soviet photos showing Trotsky. (None at all, I
suspect).

--
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Jerry Friedman]

That's a good reason to require lists of ingredients on ground meat but
not whole cuts, but I don't see it as a good reason for a difference in
nutritional labeling, such as the amounts of protein, fat, carbohydrate,
and vitamins and minerals.

Now I can't remember whether American ground beef and whole cuts
of beef have nutritional labels. Google Images seems to think so. I'm
pretty sure milk does (see below).

> > (Also milk and butter are exempt from the labeling requirement. I
> > find it very odd that ground beef is considered more processed or
> > packaged than butter.)
> >
> > https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/manitoba-s-beef-industry-calling-on-health-canada-for-exemption-to-saturated-fat-warning-label-1.5941065

--
Jerry Friedman

[Richard Heathfield]

Maybe he just wasn't particularly photogenic?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky#/media/File:%D0%9B%D0%B5%D0%B2_%D0%94%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87_%D0%A2%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9.jpg

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

[Richard Heathfield]

On 17/06/2022 6:48 am, occam wrote:
> On 17/06/2022 02:04, Jerry Friedman wrote:

<snip>

>> According to this, the reason for the discrepancy is that no whole raw cuts
>> of meat are required to have nutritional labels of any kind, but ground
>> meat is. It doesn't give the reason for that.
>
>
> The obvious reason is that once you mince the meat, you open up the
> possibility of adding all kinds of unknown ingredients (other types
> meat) into the mix. We are talking haggis-grade ingredients, which are
> difficult to identify, except by food experts.

Haggis are easy to identify. The left legs are shorter than the
right legs, to keep them stable on hillsides. And their meat is
readily identified even after grinding because it consists of 90%
porridge oats.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 6:32:10 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter T. Daniels:
> > On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 10:03:32 AM UTC-4, lar3ryca wrote:

> >> The news today reported that Health Canada is planning to add a
> >> front-of-pack warning on ground beef about containing high levels of
> >> saturated fats. The REALLY stupid thing about it is that a very lean
> >> roast does not have high levels of said fat, and will not require a
> >> warning label, but grind it and package it, and it does.
> > Maybe lar3 is unaware that when beef is ground for use in recipes,
> > varying amounts of fat are added according to the specific purpose
> > (recipe), and at any normal butcher counter you can get ground beef
> > labeled with different percentages of "lean."
>
> Hardly. The pre-packaged ones are labeled at four levels here (regular -
> medium - lean - extra lean).
>
> <https://canadabeef.ca/ground-beef-know-how/>
>
> So the question is, would lean or extra lean ground beef really get the
> label?

Your country, your regulations.

The point is that the fat content of ground beef is not determined
by the amount of fat inherent in the unground chunk of beef that
is ground up.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 8:50:12 AM UTC-4, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 11:48:35 PM UTC-6, occam wrote:
> > On 17/06/2022 02:04, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > > On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 8:03:32 AM UTC-6, lar3ryca wrote:

> > >> The news today reported that Health Canada is planning to add a
> > >> front-of-pack warning on ground beef about containing high levels of
> > >> saturated fats. The REALLY stupid thing about it is that a very lean
> > >> roast does not have high levels of said fat, and will not require a
> > >> warning label, but grind it and package it, and it does.
> > > According to this, the reason for the discrepancy is that no whole raw cuts
> > > of meat are required to have nutritional labels of any kind, but ground
> > > meat is. It doesn't give the reason for that.
> > The obvious reason is that once you mince the meat, you open up the
> > possibility of adding all kinds of unknown ingredients (other types
> > meat) into the mix. We are talking haggis-grade ingredients, which are
> > difficult to identify, except by food experts.
>
> That's a good reason to require lists of ingredients on ground meat but
> not whole cuts, but I don't see it as a good reason for a difference in
> nutritional labeling, such as the amounts of protein, fat, carbohydrate,
> and vitamins and minerals.

You useta could get packages of ground meat containing equal amounts
of beef, pork, and veal, intended for meat loaf and maybe for some kinds
of meatballs.

Ground lamb was sometimes available, but lamburgers were inevitably
very dry -- not enough fat had been (was available to be?) added.

> Now I can't remember whether American ground beef and whole cuts
> of beef have nutritional labels. Google Images seems to think so. I'm
> pretty sure milk does (see below).

I don't recall nutrition labels on shrink-wrapped meats, but ones from
packagers that come in boxes do have them.

[Jerry Friedman]

See also Akhenaten and Hatshepsut.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Ken Blake]

On Thu, 16 Jun 2022 18:32:03 -0400, Quinn C
<lispa...@crommatograph.info> wrote:

>* Peter T. Daniels:
>

>> On Thursday, June 16, 2022 at 10:03:32 AM UTC-4, lar3ryca wrote:
>>
>>> The news today reported that Health Canada is planning to add a
>>> front-of-pack warning on ground beef about containing high levels of
>>> saturated fats. The REALLY stupid thing about it is that a very lean
>>> roast does not have high levels of said fat, and will not require a
>>> warning label, but grind it and package it, and it does.
>>

>> Maybe lar3 is unaware that when beef is ground for use in recipes,
>> varying amounts of fat are added according to the specific purpose
>> (recipe), and at any normal butcher counter you can get ground beef
>> labeled with different percentages of "lean."
>
>Hardly. The pre-packaged ones are labeled at four levels here (regular -
>medium - lean - extra lean).

Not here. Here they are labeled with their percentage of lean meat
(80%, 85%, 90%, etc,)

[Ken Blake]

Also bacteria. That's the reason it's safest never to buy ground meat,
but to grind it yourself, just before cooking it.

I think that's good advice, but I never do it. It's much too much
trouble for me, and I've never gotten sick from ground meat yet.

[Ken Blake]

I never knew anybody whose life ended with sex, but I knew a lot of
people whose life ended with death.

[Quinn C]

Everything the podcast episode talked about happened in the past, mostly
in the 1960s (the subject was Ewan Forbes). But none of it had already
been told at the time of these warnings, and that's why most of the
warnings are in the future. The upcoming narrative will include mention
of the anesthetic administered without consent.

The podcast also didn't include "misgendering" as part of its own text,
but only within quotes. Making these differences explicit every single
time would feel clumsy, I think.

[Quinn C]

* J. J. Lodder:

Yeah, and that's exactly where they were supposedly carrying their
weapons.

[Quinn C]

* Jerry Friedman:

> On Wednesday, June 15, 2022 at 7:27:09 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:

>> * Jerry Friedman:
>>> On Tuesday, June 14, 2022 at 3:24:15 PM UTC-6, Quinn C wrote:
>>> ...
>>>
>>>> A lot of SF, even quite recent one, while set maybe centuries in the
>>>> future, or in civilizations much more technically advanced, isn't
>>>> keeping up with the changes in gender roles und understanding of gender
>>>> that have happened in the last few decades. That's something I notice a
>>>> lot, obviously.
>>>>
>>>> Down to trivialities like hairstyles and dresses, future humanity and
>>>> even aliens often adhere to the gender markers of 1950s Western culture.
>>>
>>> I'll take your word for it. I'm not keeping up with SF, and what I've read lately
>>> hasn't been like that, e.g., the Ann Leckie books you mentioned in another
>>> thread.
>
>> When it comes to hairstyles, I may be thinking mainly of movies and TV,
>> as most books don't describe hairstyles in detail. Think Star Trek. They
>> also quickly abandoned their early experiment with men in dresses.
>

> Yes, there's a limit to how much you can confuse people in a movie or
> TV show intended for a wide audience. You could even make a case that
> the makers of /Star Trek/ assumed that everybody would show reliable
> signs of gender in clothes and grooming (as everybody but a few SF people
> assumed) and "translated" them into signs that viewers would recognize.

That's a way to frame this, yes (as with e.g. language).

>> But there was an especially blatant example of a book regarding clothes
>> that alerted me to this matter: in that book series written by two young
>> women, probably born in the 1980s, women are quite equal in the future,
>> do all the jobs - the political leader is surrounded by female assassins
>
> Assassinating the leader's enemies, not the leader, right?

Yes. Maybe I should've called them bodyguards, because I clearly
remember a scene were they were hanging around in that capacity (when
the leader appeared in a crowd); I just seem to remember they were
called assassins.

>> -, but the women, and only the women, wear, according to the latest
>> fashion, heavy dresses that get in the way when running. It just doesn't
>> make sense, and I'm afraid they made it so because it's "romantic".
>
> OK, that's a bit silly.
>

>> (The Starbound trilogy, by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, 2013-15.
>> It's officially Young Adult, but doesn't fit the category very well in
>> my view; the books are too long, and the principal characters, while
>> nominally around 20 years old, act in ways that make that age
>> implausible to me.)
>
> They're too mature or not mature enough?

Too mature. I had to make some (not all) of them mid-20s in my head to
stay with the story.

[Quinn C]

* Ken Blake:

Yes, that's a silliness that made me laugh out loud when I first saw it
in a US supermarket ("97% fat-free").

[Lewis]

That was the change that grabbed the headlines, but I thought he also
removed some cigarettes as well. I can't say, I've never seen the
expurgated version, and he has since apologized for the change.


--
I don't talk about problems, I disintegrate them.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Nelson Rockefeller? Félix Faure? Doubtless plenty of others.

> but I knew a lot of
> people whose life ended with death.