SFnal moments in your life.
cryptoguy
I'm old enough that the world has changed considerably since
my youth (in the 60s). Every now and then, I find myself in a
situation which would have fit into an SF book or movie, as
an event proving that This Is The Future.
I recently bought a new car (with about twice the fuel efficiency
of the old one). As I was driving home the other night, I pressed
a button on the steering wheel, and said 'Phonebook: Home'. The
car used the cellphone on my belt to make the call. I chatted
with my wife on the speakerphone, got a list of groceries to
pick up, and pressed another button on the wheel to hang up.
Meanwhile, the moving map of the satellite navigation system
was updated in real time (also via satellite) to show traffic
holdups.
Such a scene could easily have appeared in Amazing/Analog
in the 50s, 60s, or 70s, but I was living it.
Anyone else have these 'My God, I'm in an SF story' moments?
Peter Trei
Kip Williams
> Anyone else have these 'My God, I'm in an SF story' moments?
Not exactly, but I look at my iPod and think that it's just what I
wanted when I was a kid. Oddly, I used to think the same thing about my
disk-based mp3 player, and before that, about my Walkman.
Kip W
Andrew Plotkin
I'm waiting for the day I walk into a room and say "lights on" and
they come on.
I try it occasionally, so that I'll be surprised when it happens.
I have the backwards effect sometimes. I remember buying a train
ticket to Chicago in 1991 (for Worldcon, man, my first) and I can't
remember how I found out the train schedule or got the ticket. The
only way I know how to do those things is on a web site. There must
have been some way to do it in 1991, probably involving stoned bears
and skin-knives, but I was living in a work of historical fiction
and the details weren't very well researched.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't thrown you in military prison without trial,
it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're an American.
Dorothy J Heydt
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Here, Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> cryptoguy wrote:
>> > Anyone else have these 'My God, I'm in an SF story' moments?
>>
>> Not exactly, but I look at my iPod and think that it's just what I
>> wanted when I was a kid. Oddly, I used to think the same thing about my
>> disk-based mp3 player, and before that, about my Walkman.
>
>I'm waiting for the day I walk into a room and say "lights on" and
>they come on.
>
>I try it occasionally, so that I'll be surprised when it happens.
I used to wish I had some kind of gadget that would contain all
my books in the volume of one book. There are all sorts of
things on the market that claim they do that, but not by me, they
don't. The viewing surface is tiny, the type is illegible (to me
anyway), and you are limited to downloading something someone
else has already decided was worth inputting. I think the
version I was thinking of had its own built-in scanner. I still
have hopes that what I want will eventually come along, but I
don't expect to live to see it.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Paul Dormer
(Andrew Plotkin) wrote:
> I'm waiting for the day I walk into a room and say "lights on" and
> they come on.
>
The late, great, Dave Allan did a sketch on TV many years ago about a
man showing his friend his voice operated house. "Close curtains" and
they close etc. He then seats the friend on a chair and commands it to
recline and then go upright.
"Wow," says the friend. "What an amazing chair. Bugger me!"
Look of horror on homeowner's face.
> I try it occasionally, so that I'll be surprised when it happens.
>
> I have the backwards effect sometimes. I remember buying a train
> ticket to Chicago in 1991 (for Worldcon, man, my first) and I can't
> remember how I found out the train schedule or got the ticket. The
> only way I know how to do those things is on a web site. There must
> have been some way to do it in 1991, probably involving stoned bears
> and skin-knives, but I was living in a work of historical fiction
> and the details weren't very well researched.
I went to the 1991 Worldcon by train, as well. I visited a friend in
Minneapolis first and then took the train from there. As I recall, I
phoned up a travel agency in the UK which did Amtrak bookings, and they
sent me a timetable booklet (what you'd call a schedule, I believe).
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> I used to wish I had some kind of gadget that would contain all
> my books in the volume of one book. There are all sorts of
> things on the market that claim they do that, but not by me, they
> don't. The viewing surface is tiny, the type is illegible (to me
> anyway), and you are limited to downloading something someone
> else has already decided was worth inputting. I think the
> version I was thinking of had its own built-in scanner. I still
> have hopes that what I want will eventually come along, but I
> don't expect to live to see it.
I haven't seen it, but it sounds as though the Kindle solves your first
two problems. For the third, it lets you buy many of the books now in
print--but that's expensive if you already have the book. On the other
hand, there's all of Project Gutenberg, and a good many other sources,
out there for free in forms that could be transferred to it.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
Kip Williams
> Here, Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> cryptoguy wrote:
>>> Anyone else have these 'My God, I'm in an SF story' moments?
>> Not exactly, but I look at my iPod and think that it's just what I
>> wanted when I was a kid. Oddly, I used to think the same thing about my
>> disk-based mp3 player, and before that, about my Walkman.
>
> I'm waiting for the day I walk into a room and say "lights on" and
> they come on.
>
> I try it occasionally, so that I'll be surprised when it happens.
You need to learn the language of clapping.
Some family friend of ours in the late 50s-early 60s impressed Dad with
his home. He was an electronics whiz, and he used electric eyes to good
advantage. Dad says he'd walk into the room, and wave his hand in the
air to turn the lights on, and other impressive acts.
Dad says he accepted the job of installing a spotlight (or floodlight, I
forget) on top of the Daniels & Fisher tower in Denver, and it wasn't
possible to bring the power supply up inside the tower. At that time, a
power supply for something like that was the size of a standing US
refrigerator. This would have been inconvenient. He tinkered with it,
and found a way to miniaturize it to the size of one of those small
fridges they use in dorm rooms. After the job was over, he returned to
the task and got it down to the size of a camp cooler, and this was the
start of a new career for him, if I remember the story correctly.
Kip W
Kip Williams
> I used to wish I had some kind of gadget that would contain all
> my books in the volume of one book. There are all sorts of
> things on the market that claim they do that, but not by me, they
> don't. The viewing surface is tiny, the type is illegible (to me
> anyway), and you are limited to downloading something someone
> else has already decided was worth inputting.
The Kindle, which may be the most recent one of these you are thinking
about, will convert text for you when you e-mail it to them. It costs a
dime. Seems like a silly bottleneck to me, but not insurmountable.
Obviously, this only works if you already have an e-text. I'm not saying
it contradicts what you wrote, of course.
Kip W
Kip Williams
> In article <JsA25...@kithrup.com>,
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> I used to wish I had some kind of gadget that would contain all
>> my books in the volume of one book. There are all sorts of
>> things on the market that claim they do that, but not by me, they
>> don't. The viewing surface is tiny, the type is illegible (to me
>> anyway), and you are limited to downloading something someone
>> else has already decided was worth inputting. I think the
>> version I was thinking of had its own built-in scanner. I still
>> have hopes that what I want will eventually come along, but I
>> don't expect to live to see it.
>
> I haven't seen it, but it sounds as though the Kindle solves your first
> two problems. For the third, it lets you buy many of the books now in
> print--but that's expensive if you already have the book. On the other
> hand, there's all of Project Gutenberg, and a good many other sources,
> out there for free in forms that could be transferred to it.
Manybooks.com offers free PG texts that are already converted to a
variety of formats (though their iPod format could certainly be
improved, and I imagine the others suffer the same sort of flaws of an
automated process). I wonder if they'll be offering Kindle format soon,
or if the proprietary nature of the product means they won't be able to.
Kip W
David Friedman
Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
As I understand it, the Kindle also reads text and html, and you can
transfer things via USB or the memory card, so if you don't insist on
having them in the Kindle's ebook format you can do it for free.
Dorothy J Heydt
Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>David Friedman wrote:
>> In article <JsA25...@kithrup.com>,
>> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>>
>>> I used to wish I had some kind of gadget that would contain all
>>> my books in the volume of one book. There are all sorts of
>>> things on the market that claim they do that, but not by me, they
>>> don't. The viewing surface is tiny, the type is illegible (to me
>>> anyway), and you are limited to downloading something someone
>>> else has already decided was worth inputting. I think the
>>> version I was thinking of had its own built-in scanner. I still
>>> have hopes that what I want will eventually come along, but I
>>> don't expect to live to see it.
>>
>> I haven't seen it, but it sounds as though the Kindle solves your first
>> two problems.
Nuh-uh. I've seen pictures of it.
Look at the size of the thing, compared to the hand holding it.
Look at the size of the screen. The presumed reader is trying to
read a newspaper page through a window the size of a MM
paperback. Either the type must be reduced to 4 point, or he'll
have to scan right and left, right and left, to read each line.
Okay, he won't have to do much of that on a newspaper, if it's
printed in the traditional narrow columns. But I don't want to
read newspapers; I want to read books.
And what can you download from Amazon to read on your Kindle?
New York Times Best Sellers. I don't want to read those. I want
to read the books I've currently got, about five thousand of
them.
This is particularly unpleasant since in the next couple of
months, barring a miracle, we're going to have to get rid of the
vast majority of our books. Hal has been out of work since June,
he hasn't been able to find another job, and if lightning doesn't
strike by year's end, we're going to have to prune off most of
our possessions and go live with our daughter and son-in-law.
We can take as many books as can line the shelves of one room,
rather than four.
>> For the third, it lets you buy many of the books now in
>> print--but that's expensive if you already have the book. On the other
>> hand, there's all of Project Gutenberg, and a good many other sources,
>> out there for free in forms that could be transferred to it.
I've tried Gutenberg on occasion. Their format is hard for me
to read, with its long swathes of single-spaced typewriter font,
and if there's a way to search through a text, I haven't been
able to find it. I finally burnt out on _Remembrance of Things
Past,_ which as you may recall has no chapters. It's hard to get
back to where you left off reading when the only way you can find
the place is "forty-seven page downs."
Bartleby has an easier format, but I don't know if you can
download from it.
>
>Manybooks.com offers free PG texts that are already converted to a
>variety of formats (though their iPod format could certainly be
>improved, and I imagine the others suffer the same sort of flaws of an
>automated process). I wonder if they'll be offering Kindle format soon,
>or if the proprietary nature of the product means they won't be able to.
What likelihood is there that they'd have anything I want?
Most of these sites, quite understandably, have either (a) stuff
that is out of copyright and doesn't have to be paid for (by the
site, anyway), or stuff that is brand new and does have to be
paid for. The former is mostly elderly classics like Dickens or
Willa Cather. The latter is, as mentioned above, New York Times
Best Sellers.
What I'd like to have in a compact readable format is my
selection of Allinghams, or Andersons, or Asimovs, to name just a
few from the first bookcase I've been going through looking for
culls. Or the latest Monica Ferris or Jill Churchill, which do
not make bestseller lists.
As I said: someday, the way things are going, they'll have
something suitable. I don't expect to be around by then.
Andy Leighton
Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> Look at the size of the thing, compared to the hand holding it.
> Look at the size of the screen. The presumed reader is trying to
> read a newspaper page through a window the size of a MM
> paperback. Either the type must be reduced to 4 point, or he'll
> have to scan right and left, right and left, to read each line.
>
> Okay, he won't have to do much of that on a newspaper, if it's
> printed in the traditional narrow columns. But I don't want to
> read newspapers; I want to read books.
The screen width is 90mm wide which is approximately the same width
that the text of a normal paperback is (I compared a couple of
handy candidates from my shelves) just as you said. Therefore for
reading books you shouldn't be scrolling left and right. The height
is 120mm which is a bit less than that of a paperback - so there might
be issues there if the ebook page is the same as the dead tree page.
The iRex iLiad has a bigger screen (122mm x 163mm) and higher
resolution which should get around that issue but it is still too
expensive for me.
However I would agree with your other points about availability of
books that we would choose to read and the impossibility of
transitioning a dead-tree collection over to an electronic one.
--
Andy Leighton => an...@azaal.plus.com
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> I've tried Gutenberg on occasion. Their format is hard for me
> to read, with its long swathes of single-spaced typewriter font,
> and if there's a way to search through a text, I haven't been
> able to find it.
???
You download from Gutenberg to your computer, load the text file into
your favorite word processor, and set the line spacing to whatever you
want. Your favorite word processor can, among other things, search.
You get to choose your font too.
David Friedman
Andy Leighton <an...@azaal.plus.com> wrote:
> However I would agree with your other points about availability of
> books that we would choose to read and the impossibility of
> transitioning a dead-tree collection over to an electronic one.
>
I agree with the second of those, as I said earlier. But there is an
awful lot of stuff on Gutenberg that is worth reading--Kipling,
Chesterton, ERB, Oz books, ... .
Kip Williams
> In article <3L-dnSK1nsYUYNPa...@comcast.com>,
> Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
> I've tried Gutenberg on occasion. Their format is hard for me
> to read, with its long swathes of single-spaced typewriter font,
> and if there's a way to search through a text, I haven't been
> able to find it. I finally burnt out on _Remembrance of Things
> Past,_ which as you may recall has no chapters. It's hard to get
> back to where you left off reading when the only way you can find
> the place is "forty-seven page downs."
You assume that text cannot be changed. Just download it and put it in
NotePad or some other program that lets you switch fonts and scroll the
text. As to remembering your place, stop at a memorable phrase (write it
down if you need to) and use "find" to get back to it next time.
>> Manybooks.com offers free PG texts that are already converted to a
>> variety of formats (though their iPod format could certainly be
>> improved, and I imagine the others suffer the same sort of flaws of an
>> automated process). I wonder if they'll be offering Kindle format soon,
>> or if the proprietary nature of the product means they won't be able to.
>
> What likelihood is there that they'd have anything I want?
PG = Project Gutenburg. If there's nothing you want there, my apologies,
but to me the place is a treasure trove.
Kip W
cryptoguy
> I haven't seen it, but it sounds as though the Kindle solves your first
> two problems. For the third, it lets you buy many of the books now in
> print--but that's expensive if you already have the book. On the other
> hand, there's all of Project Gutenberg, and a good many other sources,
> out there for free in forms that could be transferred to it.
The Kindle definitely shows that the a good device could
be built. But this isn't it. Unfortunately, the thing is
trapped in a subscription business model benefitting
Amazon, and involves a Sprint EVDO network connection.
I suggest you read the review at BoingBoing Gadgets:
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/11/19/amazon-kindle-ebook-1.html
Peter Trei
Dorothy J Heydt
Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <3L-dnSK1nsYUYNPa...@comcast.com>,
>> Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> I've tried Gutenberg on occasion. Their format is hard for me
>> to read, with its long swathes of single-spaced typewriter font,
>> and if there's a way to search through a text, I haven't been
>> able to find it. I finally burnt out on _Remembrance of Things
>> Past,_ which as you may recall has no chapters. It's hard to get
>> back to where you left off reading when the only way you can find
>> the place is "forty-seven page downs."
>
>You assume that text cannot be changed. Just download it
Download it how? If there's a way of doing so, I was not able to
find it. I did try downloading some of it by cutting-and-pasting
several pages at a time, but with something the length of _RoTP_
that is a long and counter-productive task.
and put it in
>NotePad or some other program that lets you switch fonts and scroll the
>text. As to remembering your place, stop at a memorable phrase (write it
>down if you need to) and use "find" to get back to it next time.
Yeah yeah, and I could've put chapter breaks in too, if I
could've downloaded it.
>>> Manybooks.com offers free PG texts that are already converted to a
>>> variety of formats (though their iPod format could certainly be
>>> improved, and I imagine the others suffer the same sort of flaws of an
>>> automated process). I wonder if they'll be offering Kindle format soon,
>>> or if the proprietary nature of the product means they won't be able to.
>>
>> What likelihood is there that they'd have anything I want?
>
>PG = Project Gutenburg. If there's nothing you want there, my apologies,
>but to me the place is a treasure trove.
ITYM Gutenberg.
So far I have found, I think, two things I wanted in there.
Please note that that was where I found _RoTP_, with the problems
noted above. Note also, to be fair, that I haven't searched much
in there, BECAUSE of the problems noted above.
Daniel Silevitch
>
> Anyone else have these 'My God, I'm in an SF story' moments?
There was a three-day stretch during my grad school days when I felt
like I was living in a cheesy SF movie. Day 1 consisted of upgrading a
system by removing one plasma gun and replacing it with an ion gun[1].
On day 2, I told my advisor that in order to complete something, I was
going to have to recalculate the flux density[2]. And on day 3, for that
special Star Trek feeling, I was at the controls of something, somebody
told me to 'engage', and I did[3].
Yeesh.
I have also been involved in work where reversing the polarity of the
neutron flow is an eminently reasonable thing to do.[4]
-dms
[1] It was a vacuum deposition system. We were replacing one of the
magnetron sputtering sources with an ion mill.
[2] Calculating magnetic field effects from an array of microscopic
magnets, after changing some of the array parameters.
[3] Training session for an atomic force microscope. To 'engage' is to
move the probe tip down until it starts to deflect from nearing the
surface.
[4] Spin-polarized neutron scattering, where you do care whether your
beam is polarized spin-up or spin-down.
Dorothy J Heydt
Yeah ... I didn't have to read that (though I did), having
already seen Amazon's demo video about it. A few shots of an
uncomfortably grey and blurry text, sugar coated by lots of shots
of a guy in jeans walking around (campus? the mall?) casually
carrying the thing. I suppose it was supposed to be the
equivalent of the pretty girl sitting in the passenger's seat of
the shiny new car they're trying to sell you ... but no sale
here.
Particularly not at four hundred potatoes.
Kip Williams
> In article <T_ydnaV_1M0uj9La...@comcast.com>,
> Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> You assume that text cannot be changed. Just download it
>
> Download it how? If there's a way of doing so, I was not able to
> find it. I did try downloading some of it by cutting-and-pasting
> several pages at a time, but with something the length of _RoTP_
> that is a long and counter-productive task.
Right-click on the link, "save link as" -- to disk. If you're on a Mac,
you hold down CTRL or OPT while clicking on it, or click and hold, or
something like that.
For instance. I search on "Proust" at the Gutenberg site. I get this link:
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/p#a987
At that link, I click on "Swann's Way" (I'm not going to try and read
that much French). Now I'm on this page:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7178
I select Plain text, us-ascii, no compression, which would be this link:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/7swnn10.txt
Right-clicking gets me a context menu that includes "save link as". I
select that and save the file -- 8swnn10.txt -- to my desktop.
Now I can put it in NotePad. Better yet, I can put it in QuarkXPress (or
some program that wishes it was Quark), and choose a font size, an easy
layout, and print it or read it on the computer. If I want to go to the
trouble, I can put it on my iPod, but I'd have to delete something else
to fit it in. But it's my choice, and I can use any font and font size I
want.
Kip W
Richard Kennaway
> I'm waiting for the day I walk into a room and say "lights on" and
> they come on.
Why say anything? The lights could detect when someone is there and
come on automatically.
Which exists already.
--
Richard Kennaway
Dan Goodman
I've lived in an "almost everyone is homosexual" story. Sort of. In
the late 1970s, in West Hollywood (which was then an unincorporated
area of Los Angeles County and is now an incorporated city.) Gay men
were probably a minority; but in that part of West Hollywood, might
have been a majority of the anglophone male population.
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers.".
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
mirror: http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
Andrew Plotkin
Well then it's not very damn futuristic, is it?
(My office does this. It's not sfnal because I have to flip a switch
to make the lights behave in this way -- in the other position, the
lights are simply off.)
(Which would lead a logical observer to conclude that I'm waiting for
someone to rip that switch out of the wall. But me being a logical
observer is also one of those sfnal things that has not yet happened.)
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't subjected you to searches without a
warrant, it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because of
the Fourth Amendment.
David Friedman
<2f7482b9-4abe-4f59...@r60g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
cryptoguy <treif...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks. I have now read it.
It seems to me that his basic complaint is that it won't do for free
things that other eBook readers don't do at all--automatically
downloading blogs and newspapers and such from the web.
As I understand it, it can read text and HTML as well as its own ebook
mode. That gives you all of Gutenberg and much more. I suspect it gives
you blogs for free, as long a you don't insist on automating the
process--you should be able to read a blog with the browser and then
save it, although without actually reading the instruction manual I
can't be sure of that. Similarly for newspapers that are online and free.
Keith F. Lynch
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>> I'm waiting for the day I walk into a room and say "lights on" and
>> they come on.
> Why say anything? The lights could detect when someone is there and
> come on automatically.
You might not want the lights to turn on, especially if it's late at
night and someone else is sleeping.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
David Friedman
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
...
> As I understand it, it can read text and HTML as well as its own ebook
> mode. That gives you all of Gutenberg and much more. I suspect it gives
> you blogs for free, as long a you don't insist on automating the
> process--you should be able to read a blog with the browser and then
> save it, although without actually reading the instruction manual I
> can't be sure of that. Similarly for newspapers that are online and free.
The instruction manual can be found at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/520692/Kindle-User-Guide
I haven't read very much of it yet, due to the limitations of my
internet connection--over my cell phone, EDGE, while driving north on
Interstate 5.
Yes, Betty is driving.
It does let you insert bookmarks, however, and change text size.
Keith F. Lynch
> York Times Best Sellers. I don't want to read those. I want to
> read the books I've currently got, about five thousand of them.
What's needed is a quick and easy way to scan in the contents of all
your books. I wonder if MRI or CAT scan machines can be designed to
view all the pages of a closed book.
Note that there's also an e-books discussion next door in
rec.arts.sf.writen. The thread subject is:
Electronic Books - Cool, but no sale yet
Keith F. Lynch
> The late, great, Dave Allan did a sketch on TV many years ago about
> a man showing his friend his voice operated house. "Close curtains"
> and they close etc. He then seats the friend on a chair and
> commands it to recline and then go upright.
> "Wow," says the friend. "What an amazing chair. Bugger me!"
In the short-lived Dilbert TV series, there was an episode in which
Dilbert had a shower whose temperature could be set by speaking a
number. While Dilbert was in that shower, Dogbert asked him what the
full name of that Space Odyssey movie was.
Keith F. Lynch
> I have the backwards effect sometimes. I remember buying a train
> ticket to Chicago in 1991 (for Worldcon, man, my first) and I can't
> remember how I found out the train schedule or got the ticket.
> The only way I know how to do those things is on a web site.
You could have phoned 1-800-USA-RAIL, or picked up a printed schedule
at the train station or at a commuter store.
Nels E. Satterlund
David Friedman wrote:
> In article <ddfr-DDCAA5.1...@news.isp.giganews.com>,
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > As I understand it, it can read text and HTML as well as its own ebook
> > mode. That gives you all of Gutenberg and much more. I suspect it gives
> > you blogs for free, as long a you don't insist on automating the
> > process--you should be able to read a blog with the browser and then
> > save it, although without actually reading the instruction manual I
> > can't be sure of that. Similarly for newspapers that are online and free.
>
> The instruction manual can be found at:
>
> http://www.scribd.com/doc/520692/Kindle-User-Guide
>
> I haven't read very much of it yet, due to the limitations of my
> internet connection--over my cell phone, EDGE, while driving north on
> Interstate 5.
>
> Yes, Betty is driving.
Ahh a SFnal moments in life
Nels
Now if Betty was the name of your car or a robot ...
--
Nels E Satterlund I don't speak for the company, specially here
Ne...@Starstream.net <-- Use this address for personal Email
My Lurkers motto: I read much better and faster, than I type.
Kip Williams
> I haven't read very much of it yet, due to the limitations of my
> internet connection--over my cell phone, EDGE, while driving north on
> Interstate 5.
Okay, there's a moment right there!
Kip W
Tim McDaniel
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>Richard Kennaway <drachirREVERSE...@yawannek.gro.ku> wrote:
>> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>>> I'm waiting for the day I walk into a room and say "lights on" and
>>> they come on.
>
>> Why say anything? The lights could detect when someone is there and
>> come on automatically.
>
>You might not want the lights to turn on, especially if it's late at
>night and someone else is sleeping.
Some time in the 1990s, I heard about an office building that had
motion sensors that, if it detected people in a room, would turn the
lights on. The story was that it was hell giving presentations via
projector: everyone had to sit perfectly still for N minutes to get
the lights to go off.
Thinking about it now, it pings my Urban Legend-o-meter:
how could the presenter give the presentation without bringing the
lights up again? They couldn't move transparencies over an overhead
projector, and hitting Next on a laptop or slide projector would
involve movement, albeit small, and moving one's finger to move the
mouse to point to a feature would involve more movement.
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Keith F. Lynch
> Some time in the 1990s, I heard about an office building that had
> motion sensors that, if it detected people in a room, would turn the
> lights on. The story was that it was hell giving presentations via
> projector: everyone had to sit perfectly still for N minutes to get
> the lights to go off.
> Thinking about it now, it pings my Urban Legend-o-meter:
> how could the presenter give the presentation without bringing the
> lights up again? They couldn't move transparencies over an overhead
> projector, and hitting Next on a laptop or slide projector would
> involve movement, albeit small, and moving one's finger to move the
> mouse to point to a feature would involve more movement.
I can believe it. No motion sensor is infinitely sensitive.
Dorothy J Heydt
Hm. Well, I don't know how they did it, but now I'm visualizing
someone running the projector on, basically, a theremin control
system -- in which one hand controls the volume, the other the
pitch -- and this is done by waving one's hands in the air.
Maybe the technique could be adapted?
Joy Beeson
wrote:
> You assume that text cannot be changed. Just download it and put it in
> NotePad or some other program that lets you switch fonts and scroll the
> text. As to remembering your place, stop at a memorable phrase (write it
> down if you need to) and use "find" to get back to it next time.
Or delete everything you've already read. (Best done on a second
copy, in case you want to look back at something.)
Or type an improbable combination of characters when you stop reading.
(Don't forget to delete them when you continue.)
Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
Kip Williams
> On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:28:15 -0500, Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
>> You assume that text cannot be changed. Just download it and put it in
>> NotePad or some other program that lets you switch fonts and scroll the
>> text. As to remembering your place, stop at a memorable phrase (write it
>> down if you need to) and use "find" to get back to it next time.
>
> Or delete everything you've already read. (Best done on a second
> copy, in case you want to look back at something.)
>
> Or type an improbable combination of characters when you stop reading.
> (Don't forget to delete them when you continue.)
Yeah, I think about doing that, but I'm always afraid I'll mess up the
text. Good suggestions, though, for those bolder than I.
Kip W
Dorothy J Heydt
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:28:15 -0500, Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net>
>wrote:
>
>> You assume that text cannot be changed. Just download it and put it in
>> NotePad or some other program that lets you switch fonts and scroll the
>> text. As to remembering your place, stop at a memorable phrase (write it
>> down if you need to) and use "find" to get back to it next time.
>
>Or delete everything you've already read. (Best done on a second
>copy, in case you want to look back at something.)
>
>Or type an improbable combination of characters when you stop reading.
>(Don't forget to delete them when you continue.)
Yes, I can do that, *I*F* I can download the thing in the first
place. (That's what I habitually do with text I'm writing or
revising.)
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
And since the point of Gutenburg is to let anyone who wants to download
the thing, you can.
This is like complaining about the blah taste of the thick yellow
wrapping that the bananas came in.
David Friedman
Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
Better was our last summer trip--San Jose to Pennsic. Driving across the
country with my MacBook linked to my cell phone by bluetooth, the cell
phone to the net by EDGE ...
And the Macbook functioning as a WiFi router so that the kids, in the
back of the minivan, could connect too. Our own little wireless LAN
rolling across Nevada.
No it wasn't very fast.
David G. Bell
djh...@kithrup.com "Dorothy J Heydt" wrote:
> In article <T_ydnaV_1M0uj9La...@comcast.com>,
> Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> >> In article <3L-dnSK1nsYUYNPa...@comcast.com>,
> >> Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> >> I've tried Gutenberg on occasion. Their format is hard for me
> >> to read, with its long swathes of single-spaced typewriter font,
> >> and if there's a way to search through a text, I haven't been
> >> able to find it. I finally burnt out on _Remembrance of Things
> >> Past,_ which as you may recall has no chapters. It's hard to get
> >> back to where you left off reading when the only way you can find
> >> the place is "forty-seven page downs."
> >
> >You assume that text cannot be changed. Just download it
>
> Download it how? If there's a way of doing so, I was not able to
> find it. I did try downloading some of it by cutting-and-pasting
> several pages at a time, but with something the length of _RoTP_
> that is a long and counter-productive task.
They offer download as a zipfile, which would bring up a save-as
dialogue in any browser I know running in default configuration.
Or right-click on the link and choose the save-target-as option.
It does sound as though you've picked an awkward book, but there are
utilities to convert from text to various e-book formats, which allow
reader programs with bookmark facilities.
Maybe I'm accessing PG through a different interface? There are sites
which provide that.
--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
On the horizon, a carrier task force of the Salvation Navy was
turning into the wind, preparing to launch Zeppelins.
David G. Bell
<T_ydnaV_1M0uj9La...@comcast.com>
ki...@comcast.net "Kip Williams" wrote:
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > In article <3L-dnSK1nsYUYNPa...@comcast.com>,
> > Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > I've tried Gutenberg on occasion. Their format is hard for me
> > to read, with its long swathes of single-spaced typewriter font,
> > and if there's a way to search through a text, I haven't been
> > able to find it. I finally burnt out on _Remembrance of Things
> > Past,_ which as you may recall has no chapters. It's hard to get
> > back to where you left off reading when the only way you can find
> > the place is "forty-seven page downs."
>
> You assume that text cannot be changed. Just download it and put it in
> NotePad or some other program that lets you switch fonts and scroll the
> text. As to remembering your place, stop at a memorable phrase (write it
> down if you need to) and use "find" to get back to it next time.
>
> >> Manybooks.com offers free PG texts that are already converted to a
> >> variety of formats (though their iPod format could certainly be
> >> improved, and I imagine the others suffer the same sort of flaws of an
> >> automated process). I wonder if they'll be offering Kindle format soon,
> >> or if the proprietary nature of the product means they won't be able to.
> >
> > What likelihood is there that they'd have anything I want?
>
> PG = Project Gutenburg. If there's nothing you want there, my apologies,
> but to me the place is a treasure trove.
Because of US copyright law, there are some startlingly recent works
which are out of copyright in the US. Even authors still (AFAIK) alive.
Some of these get onto PG.
Baen put out a lot of free etexts, though whether they publish anything
you like becomes the big issue. PG has a far wider range.
I would be surprised if there were nothing you'd want to read on PG, but
you might struggle to find it. I would not be surprised if there was
nothing distributed by Baen.
Jay E. Morris
On 29-Nov-2007, Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> > In article <3L-dnSK1nsYUYNPa...@comcast.com>,
> > Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > I've tried Gutenberg on occasion. Their format is hard for me
> > to read, with its long swathes of single-spaced typewriter font,
> > and if there's a way to search through a text, I haven't been
> > able to find it. I finally burnt out on _Remembrance of Things
> > Past,_ which as you may recall has no chapters. It's hard to get
> > back to where you left off reading when the only way you can find
> > the place is "forty-seven page downs."
>
> You assume that text cannot be changed. Just download it and put it in
> NotePad or some other program that lets you switch fonts and scroll the
> text. As to remembering your place, stop at a memorable phrase (write it
> down if you need to) and use "find" to get back to it next time.
I'm prone to puttng XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX on a blank line where
I stopped. Then just search for it when I open it again.
--
The email fix is obvious.
Kip Williams
The intricately detailed instructions I posted here are no help? I
suggest you invite somebody over to you house and have them show you.
Once you know how to do it, a wealth of free books (and there are other
sources besides Gutenberg, too -- I remember one called Black Mask that
had PD texts of pulp mysteries and such) is at your fingertips.
Kip W
Tim McDaniel
>someone running the projector on, basically, a theremin control
>system -- in which one hand controls the volume, the other the
>pitch -- and this is done by waving one's hands in the air.
Then he sneezes and the uncontrolled gestures send his laptop to one
of his bookmarked porn sites.
Sort of like the apocryphal story of the guy presenting a talk about a
voice-controlled computer. The guy says that he's starting a demo,
and someone from the audience shouts "CMD DOT EXE ENTER FORMAT C COLON
ENTER Y ENTER!". Or the voice-controlled room comedy sketch that
someone just posted about, the one that ends "Well, bugger me!".
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Mike Van Pelt
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>contents of all your books.
... That's a little friendlier to the originals than
what they used in "Rainbows End".
--
Mike Van Pelt | Wikipedia. The roulette wheel of knowledge.
mvp at calweb.com | --Blair P. Houghton
KE6BVH
Dorothy J Heydt
Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>
>> Yes, I can do that, *I*F* I can download the thing in the first
>> place. (That's what I habitually do with text I'm writing or
>> revising.)
>
>The intricately detailed instructions I posted here are no help?
Remember back when Gary Farber was trying to tell me how to do
something on the web, and succeeded only in confusing me
mightily? Intricately detailed instructions are no help if you
have no referents for most of the nouns and verbs in them.
Dorothy J Heydt
David G. Bell <db...@zhochaka.org.uk> wrote:
>
>Baen put out a lot of free etexts, though whether they publish anything
>you like becomes the big issue. PG has a far wider range.
>
>I would be surprised if there were nothing you'd want to read on PG, but
>you might struggle to find it. I would not be surprised if there was
>nothing distributed by Baen.
I wouldn't either. MilSF is not my thing.
Dorothy J Heydt
Yes yes yes yes yes, but all that assumes I've succeeded in
downloading the text in the first place. See upthread.
Kip Williams
What don't you know? "Click" is when you use the mouse to position the
cursor over a link and then press one of the buttons. "Left-click" means
you click the one on the left (assuming more than one). "Right-click"
means the one on the right. What else do you need to know?
Go to plan B. Have somebody show you. If you're floundering this much
over something so simple, a one-on-one is what you need. The rewards are
great.
Kip W
Dan Goodman
> Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> >>
> >> Yes, I can do that, *I*F* I can download the thing in the first
> >> place. (That's what I habitually do with text I'm writing or
> >> revising.)
> >
> > The intricately detailed instructions I posted here are no help?
>
> Remember back when Gary Farber was trying to tell me how to do
> something on the web, and succeeded only in confusing me
> mightily? Intricately detailed instructions are no help if you
> have no referents for most of the nouns and verbs in them.
Perhaps someone in your family could show you how to do it, or walk you
through it?
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers.".
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
mirror: http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
Dan Goodman
> In article <20071130.07...@zhochaka.org.uk>,
> David G. Bell <db...@zhochaka.org.uk> wrote:
> >
> > Baen put out a lot of free etexts, though whether they publish
> > anything you like becomes the big issue. PG has a far wider range.
> >
> > I would be surprised if there were nothing you'd want to read on
> > PG, but you might struggle to find it.
Note: Project Gutenberg's way of treating names might be confusing.
Once you realize that, for example, Dallas McCord Reynolds is the
person who wrote under the byline Mack Reynolds, things get easier.
For sf, it's probably simpler to go via http://freesfonline.de, which
also has free ebooks (and short stories) from other sources listed.
> I would not be surprised if
> > there was nothing distributed by Baen.
>
> I wouldn't either. MilSF is not my thing.
>
> Dorothy J. Heydt
> Albany, California
> djh...@kithrup.com
--
Tim McDaniel
Dan Goodman <dsg...@iphouse.com> wrote:
>Perhaps someone in your family could show you how to do it, or walk
>you through it?
Can any of your Neighbours tell, Dort? Ile
aske them.
--
Tim (no, not really. I just like riffing on a noble speech for a joke)
McDaniel, tm...@panix.com
Jette
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> In article <lICdnaRxH9jslM3a...@comcast.com>,
>> Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>> Yes, I can do that, *I*F* I can download the thing in the first
>>>> place. (That's what I habitually do with text I'm writing or
>>>> revising.)
>>> The intricately detailed instructions I posted here are no help?
>>
>> Remember back when Gary Farber was trying to tell me how to do
>> something on the web, and succeeded only in confusing me
>> mightily? Intricately detailed instructions are no help if you
>> have no referents for most of the nouns and verbs in them.
>
> What don't you know? "Click" is when you use the mouse to position the
> cursor over a link and then press one of the buttons. "Left-click" means
> you click the one on the left (assuming more than one). "Right-click"
> means the one on the right. What else do you need to know?
>
> Go to plan B. Have somebody show you. If you're floundering this much
> over something so simple, a one-on-one is what you need. The rewards are
> great.
>
In a lot of pensioner's lunch clubs and "day centres" in the UK, there
are classes in pc use and internet stuff for "silver surfers". My 75
year old dad is really learning his way around a 'puter. Now, if only
I can teach him how to type with both Upper and Lower case letters -
at the moment I get one or the other <g> (I've managed to train him
out of sending large .bmp image files to someone with a dial up
connection)
--
Jette Goldie
je...@blueyonder.co.uk
http://www.jette.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
http://wolfette.livejournal.com/
("reply to" is spamblocked - use the email addy in sig)
Keith F. Lynch
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> Remember back when Gary Farber was trying to tell me how to do
>> something on the web, and succeeded only in confusing me mightily?
>> Intricately detailed instructions are no help if you have no
>> referents for most of the nouns and verbs in them.
> What don't you know? "Click" is when you use the mouse to position
> the cursor over a link and then press one of the buttons. "Left-
> click" means you click the one on the left (assuming more than one).
> "Right-click" means the one on the right. What else do you need to
> know?
There are many kinds of terminals, computers, and Internet accounts.
Maybe she doesn't have a GUI setup like you do. If I had never seen a
setup other than the kind I have at home, instructions such as she's
been given would mystify me, too.
Keith F. Lynch
> Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
>> What's needed is a quick and easy way to scan in the contents of
>> all your books.
> ... That's a little friendlier to the originals than what they used
> in "Rainbows End".
My thoughts exactly. I was thinking more like the method used in
Hogan's _Inherit the Stars_. Something that can read every page of a
book without your needing to open the book. Better yet, without your
even needing to take it off the shelf.
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <20071130.07...@zhochaka.org.uk>,
> David G. Bell <db...@zhochaka.org.uk> wrote:
> >
> >Baen put out a lot of free etexts, though whether they publish anything
> >you like becomes the big issue. PG has a far wider range.
> >
> >I would be surprised if there were nothing you'd want to read on PG, but
> >you might struggle to find it. I would not be surprised if there was
> >nothing distributed by Baen.
>
> I wouldn't either. MilSF is not my thing.
Baen specializes in MilSF, but it isn't the only thing it publishes.
At least, if it is, I submitted _Salamander_ to the wrong publisher.
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
You do, however, have a husband. Who has a reference for all those odd
nouns and verbs.
And I suspect that if you go to Gutenburg with the assumption that it is
all intended for downloading, which it is, you will be able to figure it
out without even needing Hal's help.
Joy Beeson
wrote:
> Yeah, I think about doing that, but I'm always afraid I'll mess up the
> text. Good suggestions, though, for those bolder than I.
You don't need boldness, you need a spare copy.
Joy Beeson
drachirREVERSE...@yawannek.gro.ku (Richard Kennaway)
wrote:
> Why say anything? The lights could detect when someone is there and
> come on automatically.
Which reminds me of a scenelet that never went anywhere: someone
walking through the stacks enters a room, sees someone lying on the
floor, realizes that the room was dark before she came in, therefore
this person is not alive.
Dorothy J Heydt
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>On Thu, 29 Nov 2007 22:58:42 +0000,
>drachirREVERSE...@yawannek.gro.ku (Richard Kennaway)
>wrote:
>
>> Why say anything? The lights could detect when someone is there and
>> come on automatically.
>
>Which reminds me of a scenelet that never went anywhere: someone
>walking through the stacks enters a room, sees someone lying on the
>floor, realizes that the room was dark before she came in, therefore
>this person is not alive.
"The phone was ringing wildly, but there was no one to answer it
but the corpse."
David Goldfarb
Keith F. Lynch <k...@KeithLynch.net> wrote:
Dorothy has mentioned numerous times that she uses Windows.
--
David Goldfarb |
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | [This space intentionally left blank.]
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu |
David Goldfarb
>something on the web, and succeeded only in confusing me
>mightily?
As I recall it, he was trying to help you learn to use Google.
I gather from things you've said more recently that you have
eventually picked that up.
--
David Goldfarb | "M as in Mary, P as in Paul, U as in...
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | um...something beginning with U."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu |
Kip Williams
"The last man on earth lay lifeless on the floor.
"The light came on."
Kip W
Dorothy J Heydt
David Goldfarb <gold...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <JsC3y...@kithrup.com>,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>Remember back when Gary Farber was trying to tell me how to do
>>something on the web, and succeeded only in confusing me
>>mightily?
>
>As I recall it, he was trying to help you learn to use Google.
>I gather from things you've said more recently that you have
>eventually picked that up.
No, he was trying to teach me to block pop-up ads. I never have
succeeded in doing that, but I have developed a partial ability
to ignore them.
Keith F. Lynch
>> Which reminds me of a scenelet that never went anywhere: someone
>> walking through the stacks enters a room, sees someone lying on
>> the floor, realizes that the room was dark before she came in,
>> therefore this person is not alive.
That's silly. Motion detectors detect motion, not life. Darkness
just means that the person isn't moving significantly, not that
they're dead.
I've been in rooms with such lights. They occasionally turned off,
and I had to wave my arms around to turn them on again.
Mythbusters showed that a motion detector alarm system can be defeated
simply by walking very slowly.
> "The phone was ringing wildly, but there was no one to answer it
> but the corpse."
How does a phone ring "wildly"?
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
On Firefox, which is the browser I use, you go to the Firefox menu,
select "Preferences," and the first check box is "block pop-up windows."
That's on a Mac, I don't know about other versions of Firefox but I
expect they are similar.
Richard Kennaway
The caller's telephone detects the caller's emotional state and
transmits it to the callee's phone, which generates an appropriate ring
tone. In the case of an urgent call in the middle of the night, it
sprouts little arms and hands and goes and jumps up and down on the
callee's bed.
--
Richard Kennaway
David Friedman
When I was in college there were parietal rules regulating how late
women could be in men's dorms, whether the door had to be open, and--at
least supposedly--how many feet had to be on the floor.
Ten years later there were mixed sex dorms.
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
They're probably not teaching Dorothy's OS.
Dorothy, just get Hal to show you.
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://mjlayman.livejournal.com
Marilee J. Layman
McDaniel) wrote:
>In article <JsAu1...@kithrup.com>,
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>Hm. Well, I don't know how they did it, but now I'm visualizing
>>someone running the projector on, basically, a theremin control
>>system -- in which one hand controls the volume, the other the
>>pitch -- and this is done by waving one's hands in the air.
>
>Then he sneezes and the uncontrolled gestures send his laptop to one
>of his bookmarked porn sites.
>
>Sort of like the apocryphal story of the guy presenting a talk about a
>voice-controlled computer. The guy says that he's starting a demo,
>and someone from the audience shouts "CMD DOT EXE ENTER FORMAT C COLON
>ENTER Y ENTER!". Or the voice-controlled room comedy sketch that
>someone just posted about, the one that ends "Well, bugger me!".
There's a commercial for a product (and I not only don't remember the
maker, I don't remember the product) that illustrates how well it
takes voice commands by showing a guy in his house saying "Close
curtains" and then dropping his towel, turning around and seeing
someone looking in at him. Then a woman with a cup of coffee says to
a business door "Open door" and walks into the closed door. The
product is supposed to be better. Hmmm, maybe it's GPS.
Kip Williams
> Dorothy, just get Hal to show you.
I don't know why I didn't say this. I kept thinking it. Anyway, motion
seconded.
Kip W
Dorothy J Heydt
I shall try it.
Unfortunately, trying to get him away from LotRO these days is
like trying to pry a limpet off a rock with a cooked noodle. But
we'll see.
Aaron Denney
> Back to the thread subject line ... .
>
> When I was in college there were parietal rules regulating how late
> women could be in men's dorms, whether the door had to be open, and--at
> least supposedly--how many feet had to be on the floor.
>
> Ten years later there were mixed sex dorms.
I attended college at a place that allowed mixed sex rooms. Almost half
my roommates were of the other sex.
--
Aaron Denney
-><-
Kip Williams
> Unfortunately, trying to get him away from LotRO these days is
> like trying to pry a limpet off a rock with a cooked noodle. But
> we'll see.
What's LotRO? An online LotR game, I'll guess. Whenever I see the name,
I imagine it pronounced "Lord of the Ring-O."
Kip W
Karl Johanson
Some of the cons I've gone to had co-ed washrooms.
Karl Johanson
Daniel Silevitch
My college dorm was like that. Typically, new residents would giggle at
the concept, their parents would express "concern", and after about a
week of actually living there it became No Big Deal.
-dms
Dorothy J Heydt
Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> Unfortunately, trying to get him away from LotRO these days is
>> like trying to pry a limpet off a rock with a cooked noodle. But
>> we'll see.
>
>What's LotRO? An online LotR game, I'll guess.
Exactly. Came out this past April from Turbine, producer of
Asheron's Call and Dungeons&Dragons Online. Beautiful graphics,
excellent quest-writing, and a laudable determination to stay as
close to Tolkien's vision as possible.
E.g., in LotRO a player character cannot be a wizard. There were
only five wizards, and they weren't humans (or Elves, Dwarves, or
Hobbits). The closest you can be to the standard FRP mage is a
Lore-master, who is really more like an engineer, in the sense of
an applied physicist. The first attack a Level 1 Lore-master
gets is Burning Embers, which consists essentially of taking out
a pine cone or something, setting it afire, and throwing it at
the target. Tolkien's Middle-Earth is actually a very low-magic
environment.
Whenever I see the name,
>I imagine it pronounced "Lord of the Ring-O."
Not that I ever heard. Either we pronounce it in full or say
"Loat-row."
Dorothy J Heydt
Yes, I understand (though co-ed dorms were WAY after my time)
that once one gets a few glimpses of the opposite sex getting put
together in the morning, unkempt, unshaven (if applicable),
bleary-eyed and wearing scruffy underwear, PJs, and/or bathrobe,
all possibility of desire is dispelled.
Kip Williams
Of course you never heard it. My imagination is inside my head.
Kip W
Johan Larson
> In article <m9ydnV_QNJrXeczanZ2dnUVZ_jydn...@comcast.com>,
> Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >Marilee J. Layman wrote:
> >> Dorothy, just get Hal to show you.
>
> >I don't know why I didn't say this. I kept thinking it. Anyway, motion
> >seconded.
>
> I shall try it.
>
> Unfortunately, trying to get him away from LotRO these days is
> like trying to pry a limpet off a rock with a cooked noodle. But
> we'll see.
Your home has a fuse-box, does it not?
Johan Larson
Johan Larson
> > Kip Williams <ki...@comcast.net> wrote:
> > Whenever I see the name,
> >> I imagine it pronounced "Lord of the Ring-O."
>
> > Not that I ever heard. Either we pronounce it in full or say
> > "Loat-row."
>
> Of course you never heard it. My imagination is inside my head.
What if it weren't? There's a story in that, for sure.
Johan Larson
Kip Williams
Like in "Cap'n Easy," when Buster Kallikak dreamed out loud, or a strip
I used to draw for family amusement where Dr. Franstein's attempt at a
mind-reading machine left him thinking out loud all the time. I could
plagiarize myself with little risk, there.
Kip W
Kip Williams
Unless hers is the only laptop, there's a small flaw in that plan.
Kip W
Karl Johanson
>My imagination is inside my head.
The government would like you to think that.
Karl Johanson
Johan Larson
I was thinking of something more like a physical comedy, where your
imagination takes human form, looking just like you, and acting like a
_completely uninhibited_ you. It would run around having zany
adventures while you chased after it until you finally managed to tie
it up and lock it in the attic where it belongs.
Johan Larson
Joy Beeson
wrote:
> Mythbusters showed that a motion detector alarm system can be defeated
> simply by walking very slowly.
I watched an episode of Mythbusters once. I wouldn't accept any of
their conclusions without *lots* of corroborating evidence.
Joy Beeson
--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ -- sewing
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.
Dorothy J Heydt
I wrote one along those general lines ... a woman who was cursed
with having mythical monsters become real wherever she lived.
Giant alligators in the sewers of New York. Bigfoot in Northern
California. Someone found a niche in which her peculiar talent
could be turned to good ... on the shores of Loch Ness.
Dorothy J Heydt
Two. They're both in the garage and require massive excavations
to get at either of them.
And the computer's attached to a UPS anyway. :)
Johan Larson
Hal is presumably playing the game on a desktop, since he needs as
much graphics oomf as he can get. And with the elite Ninja skills
Dorothy learned in the Berkeley Theological Society for Ladies (Ops
Division), she can surrepticiously shut down and drain the house
laptops while Hal is busy fancying hobbitses, or whatnot.
Johan Larson
Joy Beeson
wrote:
> That's silly. Motion detectors detect motion, not life. Darkness
> just means that the person isn't moving significantly, not that
> they're dead.
He hasn't moved for at least five minutes.
The motion detector in question can detect breathing.
I've no clue as to how far into the future this flash-hallucination is
-- or anything else; just a long dark corridor that illumines the part
that is being used.
Can't be in my Anjela universe, because the vital-sign monitor he
would be wearing would have sent out an automatic alarm. And the
places too backward to have vital-sign monitors are too backward to
have such a sophisticated light switch -- particularly considering how
many actually-useful things one can do with limited resources.
Well, there's a colony ship buried on Ganjali, but I don't envision it
as having corridors to wander around in.
Karl Johanson
> Daniel Silevitch <dms...@uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 01:01:24 GMT, Karl Johanson <karljo...@shaw.ca>
>>wrote:
>>> Some of the cons I've gone to had co-ed washrooms.
>>
>>My college dorm was like that. Typically, new residents would giggle
>>at
>>the concept, their parents would express "concern", and after about a
>>week of actually living there it became No Big Deal.
>
> Yes, I understand (though co-ed dorms were WAY after my time)
> that once one gets a few glimpses of the opposite sex getting put
> together in the morning, unkempt, unshaven (if applicable),
> bleary-eyed and wearing scruffy underwear, PJs, and/or bathrobe,
> all possibility of desire is dispelled.
Didn't work that way for me. I did co-ed field exercises in the
military. Saw some female co-workers with looking sleepy, uncombed hair,
covered in camouflage paint & wearing scruffy underwear & found some of
them quite attractive. It was the 21 hour shifts which kept the
fraternizing in the field to a minimum, not seeing each other unkempt.
One evening we got to go to ground at 1:00 AM. After an hour of sleep, I
had sentry duty from 2:00 to 3:00, then back to sleep until 5:00. I got
into my sleeping bag a bit after 3:00 and my sentry partner climbed into
hers beside me a moment later, using the light from a nearly dead glow
stick. I remembered thinking, "oh my, Rosa looks severely hot in her
underwear". I was asleep somewhere around 6 seconds later.
Karl Johanson
Dorothy J Heydt
I wish.
I play LotRO too, but not so many hours per day. I get tired
sitting up and paying attention. Getting old is the pits.
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>> Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>>> Which reminds me of a scenelet that never went anywhere: someone
>>> walking through the stacks enters a room, sees someone lying on
>>> the floor, realizes that the room was dark before she came in,
>>> therefore this person is not alive.
>
>That's silly. Motion detectors detect motion, not life. Darkness
>just means that the person isn't moving significantly, not that
>they're dead.
>
>I've been in rooms with such lights. They occasionally turned off,
>and I had to wave my arms around to turn them on again.
When I used to get IVs twice a week, the lights would keep going off
in the exam room and all I had to do was say "Turn back on, you stupid
lights." I suppose I moved my head a bit because they're motion
sensors, not audio sensors.
>Mythbusters showed that a motion detector alarm system can be defeated
>simply by walking very slowly.
>
>> "The phone was ringing wildly, but there was no one to answer it
>> but the corpse."
>
>How does a phone ring "wildly"?
Wim Lewis
Joy Beeson <jbe...@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>On 1 Dec 2007 12:48:18 -0500, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@KeithLynch.net>
>wrote:
>> That's silly. Motion detectors detect motion, not life. Darkness
>> just means that the person isn't moving significantly, not that
>> they're dead.
>
>He hasn't moved for at least five minutes.
>
>The motion detector in question can detect breathing.
>
>I've no clue as to how far into the future this flash-hallucination is
>-- or anything else; just a long dark corridor that illumines the part
>that is being used.
>
>Can't be in my Anjela universe, because the vital-sign monitor he
>would be wearing would have sent out an automatic alarm.
Unless the vitals monitor was sabotaged in some way by the murderer.
In that universe, though, the room might not even need a motion sensor---
the monitors might easily provide enough information to know whether the room
was occupied. On the other hand, they might also provide enough information
to know whether the sole occupant was sleeping, in which case the lights
might turn off again, bringing us back to Keith's objection. Maybe the
library's lights wouldn't be programmed to cater to sleeping patrons.
--
Wim Lewis <wi...@hhhh.org>, Seattle, WA, USA. PGP keyID 27F772C1
David Friedman
Aaron Denney <wno...@ofb.net> wrote:
I think officially allowing mixed sex rooms is still uncommon. The
standard pattern, at least in the liberal arts colleges we've been
visiting, is few or no gender segregated dorms, some dorms gender
segregated by floor, some dorms with floors gender mixed, but all rooms
nominally gender segregated.
Where were you?
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> >My college dorm was like that. Typically, new residents would giggle at
> >the concept, their parents would express "concern", and after about a
> >week of actually living there it became No Big Deal.
>
> Yes, I understand (though co-ed dorms were WAY after my time)
Not all that much--I don't think you went to college very long before I
did, and I'm pretty sure they were happening within ten years of my
graduation.
A little googling hasn't turned up a solid date for when they appeared
and started to spread, but it looks as though somewhere around 1970 is a
good guess.
Aaron Denney
> In article <slrnfl3u6p...@ofb.net>,
> Aaron Denney <wno...@ofb.net> wrote:
>
>> On 2007-12-01, David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>> > Back to the thread subject line ... .
>> >
>> > When I was in college there were parietal rules regulating how late
>> > women could be in men's dorms, whether the door had to be open, and--at
>> > least supposedly--how many feet had to be on the floor.
>> >
>> > Ten years later there were mixed sex dorms.
>>
>> I attended college at a place that allowed mixed sex rooms. Almost half
>> my roommates were of the other sex.
>
> I think officially allowing mixed sex rooms is still uncommon.
Oh, I'd place it at rare, rather than uncommon. But there are a few
that do allow it.
> Where were you?
Caltech, 1995-2000.
Kip Williams
>>>>> Dorothy, just get Hal to show you.
Dorothy, as I was waking up, it occurred to me that if you have the file
open for reading, you can go up to the FILE menu and choose SAVE PAGE.
Save it as text in a place you can find, and when you open it again, it
should be in a text editor, and you can look at the menus up top for the
one that will let you format it with a larger font and stuff.
Kip W
Kip Williams
> "Kip Williams" <ki...@comcast.net> wrote
>
>> My imagination is inside my head.
>
> The government would like you to think that.
In a recent three-part "South Park," terrorists invaded our imagination,
and the government had to bomb it.
Kip W
Paul Dormer
Johanson) wrote:
>
> Some of the cons I've gone to had co-ed washrooms.
Mabinogicon, a small convention held in a university in north Wales
(with university style accommodation), had Polish woman (whose name I
can't remember how to spell) as fan Guest of Honour.
First morning of the con, I got up to go to the bathroom, still in my
pyjamas. Grabbed my keys, made sure the room door was locked, etc.
When I got back, I realised I'd picked up my house keys, not the room
keys. There was no-one around and I went in search of a porter or
someone. I ended up having to go all the way to the main dining room,
where breakfast was being served, and ask one of the kitchen staff to
fetch the head porter, who had the master keys.
Whilst waiting for him to turn up, I bumped into a friend who had
someone in tow. "Hi, Paul," she said. "Have you met the fan guest of
honour?"
A couple of years later, at Intersection in a party, I met a group of
Polish fans and she was there and immediately remembered me as "the man
in the pyjamas." I had fears (unfounded, as it happened) that when I
finally made it to a Polish convention, everyone there would be calling
me that.