Job title of the day

[Robert Carnegie]

...which I think they may have got slightly and splendidly wrong:

"Deputy Director in charge of the Solar System"

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vmr1m>

But according to <https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=AJCOA20>
he's leading an expedition to Mars in 2018. So we shall see.

And I want to know what else there is a Deputy Director In Charge Of, there.
Maybe the Fourth Dimension? Future Time? The Micro-Verse?

Also:

"Cassini [*] is still there, in orbit, confirming Saturn, with
its rings and many moons, as one of the most intriguing and
beautiful planets in our Solar System."

Which is why it's under observation - in case someone steals it.

[*] Not the actual guy. His space probe.

[Peter Trei]

On Thursday, January 14, 2016 at 11:47:49 AM UTC-5, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> ...which I think they may have got slightly and splendidly wrong:
>
> "Deputy Director in charge of the Solar System"
>
> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vmr1m>
>
> But according to <https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=AJCOA20>
> he's leading an expedition to Mars in 2018. So we shall see.

Just a plug for "In Our Time", the radio series in the first link. Melvyn Bragg
gets together weekly with 2-3 academics who are experts on a given topic,
and spends 45 minutes getting educated. The topics range very, very widely,
and the listener comes away smarter.

IoT is available free on iTunes and from the BBC site, and is one of my favorite
podcasts.

pt

[Kevrob]

On Thursday, January 14, 2016 at 11:47:49 AM UTC-5, Robert Carnegie wrote:

This reminds me of Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan's job when he gets
kidnapped to the 58th Century and has a "Pol Manning" history
implanted on his amnesiac brain: Solar Director!

http://www.dcuguide.com/glcorps/profile.php?name=polmanning

http://www.comics.org/issue/16421/cover/4/

Green Lantern Vol. 2 #8 (Sept-Oct 1961): "The Challenge From 5700 A.D.!"
by John Broome and Gil Kane

I never noticed if Hal had a deputy. He did have a very fetching
red-headed assistant, Iona Vane.

Nowadays, "solar director" is a real job, acc to search engines.
Different duties, though.

http://www.google.com/#q=%22solar+director%22

Kevin R

[Jack Bohn]

I can imagine a heirarchy where today the Deputy Director has fewer staff and a smaller budget than the humble Registrar of Low Earth Orbits theoretically below him. I can also imagine them not on the same branch or eve tree. Given bureaucracy, both situations probably exist.

--
-Jack

[Jack Bohn]

[art...@yahoo.com]

I didn't know that Saturn is Catholic

[Jack Bohn]

I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints, but I wouldn't think that'd have happened with the Roman ones. Still, if he's been confirmed...

--
-Jack

[Jack Bohn]

Duh. Saturnalia was "baptised" into Christmas, where was my mind?

--
-Jack

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,

Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,

I hadn't heard that ... but it's clear that many pagan holidays
were turned into Christian saints' days, since they were so
important to the agricultural year.

>but I wouldn't think that'd have happened with the Roman ones. Still,
>if he's been confirmed...

Well, um, confirmation must be preceded by baptism. :)

One thing the Church did adopt (sometimes) was the names of the
Roman gods for the days of the week. Dies Martis, Dies Veneris,
etc.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com

[Joe Pfeiffer]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:

> In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,
> Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,
>
> I hadn't heard that ...

I've seen it claimed frequently, but have not seen any convincing
examples.

> but it's clear that many pagan holidays
> were turned into Christian saints' days, since they were so
> important to the agricultural year.

My impression has been very slightly different from that -- not that
they were important to the agricultural year, but that the people were
accustomed to celebrating *something* that day, so let's give 'em
something Christian to celebrate.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <1bio2vz...@pfeifferfamily.net>,

Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>
>> In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,
>>
>> I hadn't heard that ...
>
>I've seen it claimed frequently, but have not seen any convincing
>examples.
>
>> but it's clear that many pagan holidays
>> were turned into Christian saints' days, since they were so
>> important to the agricultural year.
>
>My impression has been very slightly different from that -- not that
>they were important to the agricultural year, but that the people were
>accustomed to celebrating *something* that day, so let's give 'em
>something Christian to celebrate.

Yes. But a lot of the major pagan holidays -- particularly in
Northern Europe -- *were* tied to the agricultural year. The
further north you go, the shorter the growing season, and you
have to keep closer track of when to plant and when to harvest
than in, say, the Middle East.

The important pagan (and hence, Christian) festivals were the
quarter days -- solstices and equinoxes -- and the cross-quarter
days, which were halfway in between the quarter days.

The next cross-quarter day coming up is February 2, which the
Celtic pagans called Imbolc and the Christians called Candlemas.

[Lawrence Watt-Evans]

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 23:05:54 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

>In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,
>Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,
>
>I hadn't heard that ... but it's clear that many pagan holidays
>were turned into Christian saints' days, since they were so
>important to the agricultural year.

St. Bridget was a Celtic deity who got Christianized -- I forget her
original name just now.

Can't think of other examples off the top of my head, but there were
probably several.

Of course, Christians aren't unusual in this; the Romans took over the
sacred places of the Celtic goddess Sulis and said they were sacred to
Minerva, that the locals had just had her name wrong.





--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <1mvg9bp2c0t6f4j58...@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 23:05:54 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,
>>Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,
>>
>>I hadn't heard that ... but it's clear that many pagan holidays
>>were turned into Christian saints' days, since they were so
>>important to the agricultural year.
>
>St. Bridget was a Celtic deity who got Christianized -- I forget her
>original name just now.

Brigid. Hardly a change.

>
>Can't think of other examples off the top of my head, but there were
>probably several.
>
>Of course, Christians aren't unusual in this; the Romans took over the
>sacred places of the Celtic goddess Sulis and said they were sacred to
>Minerva, that the locals had just had her name wrong.

And their original gods, who mind you had descended by winding
ways from the same Indo-European gods that the Greeks' gods had,
became much more like the Greek gods once they encountered them.
Venus, for instance, was originally a garden goddess before she
assimilated to Aphrodite. (I had this from no less an expert
than Joseph Fontenrose.)

I got a story out of that phenomenon, in fact, when my character
Cynthia rejuvenated the Olympian gods by telling them their Roman
names. :)

[Robert Carnegie]

SUBSCRIBE

[William December Starr]

In article <48ed75ad-e611-453b...@googlegroups.com>,

Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> said:

> This reminds me of Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan's job when he gets
> kidnapped to the 58th Century and has a "Pol Manning" history
> implanted on his amnesiac brain: Solar Director!
>
> http://www.dcuguide.com/glcorps/profile.php?name=polmanning
>
> http://www.comics.org/issue/16421/cover/4/
>
> Green Lantern Vol. 2 #8 (Sept-Oct 1961): "The Challenge From 5700
> A.D.!" by John Broome and Gil Kane

the dcguide entry says, re Green Lantern Vol. 2 #51, cover date
March 1967, also written by John Broome:

To solve the mystery, Green Lantern traveled to 5707 AD.

While there, he not only discovered the actions of the Solar
Council, but battled another Pol Manning, a sinister replica of
himself. Green Lantern's great willpower and his power ring had
created an evil duplicate Pol Manning, known as Doctor Strangehate.

...to which I say "Ow."

-- wds (and not in a good way)

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <82d5cc26-5676-4353...@googlegroups.com>,

[*]

In other words, explain, please.

[Scott Lurndal]

Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:
>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>
>> In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,
>> Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,
>>
>> I hadn't heard that ...
>
>I've seen it claimed frequently, but have not seen any convincing
>examples.
>
>> but it's clear that many pagan holidays
>> were turned into Christian saints' days, since they were so
>> important to the agricultural year.
>
>My impression has been very slightly different from that -- not that
>they were important to the agricultural year, but that the people were
>accustomed to celebrating *something* that day, so let's give 'em
>something Christian to celebrate.

My impression was that the church co-opted the pagan holidays
to reinforce the church's anathema to paganism.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <N28my.158948$zT1.1...@fx26.iad>,

Scott Lurndal <sl...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> writes:
>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>>
>>> In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,
>>> Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,
>>>
>>> I hadn't heard that ...
>>
>>I've seen it claimed frequently, but have not seen any convincing
>>examples.
>>
>>> but it's clear that many pagan holidays
>>> were turned into Christian saints' days, since they were so
>>> important to the agricultural year.
>>
>>My impression has been very slightly different from that -- not that
>>they were important to the agricultural year, but that the people were
>>accustomed to celebrating *something* that day, so let's give 'em
>>something Christian to celebrate.

Well, yes. That went both ways: celebrating the Nativity of the
Lord in December, while the pagans were celebrating Saturnalia,
gave the Christians something to do *and made it less obvious
that they were not celebrating Saturnalia.* Remember that in the
first through third centuries of the Common Era, Christianity was
illegal because its adherents would not worship the Emperor.

[Robert Carnegie]

A modest joke. Briefly, a response of "SUBSCRIBE" means "More of
that, please" - literally, or otherwise, such as sarcastically -
for reasons.

In this case, I'm asking for more of this or these Dies Veneris.

Or, having looked it up, I've got that Friday feeling.

[Kevrob]

I'd put that odd name down to the "camp" influence of the
Batman TV show. The issue even had go-go checks!

http://www.comics.org/issue/20795/cover/4/

They may also have been referencing Marvel's Doctor Strange.

http://www.comics.org/issue/20840/ STRRANGE TALES 154, same month.

Stan Lee wasn't always that original with names. As was a
the case of DAREDEVIL, he used the moniker of a defunct
Golden Age character, albeit a less prominent one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Strange

Ned Pines (Thrilling Wonder Stories, Startling Stories)
published that Doc. Sorta

The late 60s found superhero scripters scrambling for names.
All the low hanging fruit had been taken. Ideal Toys had, as
the nemesis of Captain Action, Dr Evil. Mike Myers borrowed
that, but perhaps he had never heard of it.

I'd be very surprised if there weren't "Dr Evils" in the pulps
and comics. There were enough Dr Deaths.

Kevin R

DC did the comic for that, with Kane pencilling the Dr Evil origin

http://www.comics.org/issue/22501/cover/4/

[Cryptoengineer]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
news:o1013...@kithrup.com:

I'd expect Dorothy to remember this, but....

Back in the early days of the internet, before the web, usenet and
mailing lists reigned supreme. One of the popular mailing list
management programs was 'listserv'. SF-Lovers (the ancestor of
this group) ran on listserv.

Listserv allowed people to subscribe and unsubscribe by sending
specially crafted email messages to the list address at the
listserv. In particular, sending 'unsubscribe' as the sole body
of a message would unsubscribe you. Subscription was only a little
more complicated.

Before The September which Never Ended (starting 1993), many new
undergrads would start using their shiny new internet accounts,
often their first contact with the net, and many would subscribe to
SF-Lovers.

However, finding that the level of traffic back then would
rapidly swamp their disk quotas, they'd try to unsubscribe.
They'd get it wrong, putting the 'unsubscribe' command in the
subject line, mispelling it, or both. Many would get very
frustrated, and complain on the list.

This got to be a running joke, since which time messages which
just say 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' have carried special
meaning in the group.

pt

[leif...@dimnakorr.com]

Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>
> Well, yes. That went both ways: celebrating the Nativity of the
> Lord in December, while the pagans were celebrating Saturnalia,
> gave the Christians something to do *and made it less obvious
> that they were not celebrating Saturnalia.*

Isn't that all just conjecture, though? As far as I'm aware, we
don't have any real knowledge of how or even whether Christmas was
originally treated by the early Christians; whether it was marked
with festivities or not.

--
Leif Roar Moldskred

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <XnsA59080029B...@216.166.97.131>,

Well, I was never on any mailing lists, so I missed that part.

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <8de0d5a3-42cd-41e8...@googlegroups.com>,

Yup. And, you'll note, "Venus" translates to "Freya."

I wish I could think that the early Germanic speakers named the
days of the week from the same gods that the Romans did, but I
consider it highly unlikely.

[Brian M. Scott]

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 23:20:33 GMT, Dorothy J Heydt
<djh...@kithrup.com> wrote
in<news:o10ou...@kithrup.com> in rec.arts.sf.written:

> In article <8de0d5a3-42cd-41e8...@googlegroups.com>,
> Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

[...]

>> In this case, I'm asking for more of this or these Dies
>> Veneris.

>> Or, having looked it up, I've got that Friday feeling.

> Yup. And, you'll note, "Venus" translates to "Freya."

The English day name is from Old English <Fríge>
(<Fri:ge>), corresponding to Old Norse <Frigg>, not
<Freyja>; the latter is identical with <freyja> 'lady',
whose OE cognate is <fréo> (<fre:o>).

> I wish I could think that the early Germanic speakers
> named the days of the week from the same gods that the
> Romans did, but I consider it highly unlikely.

The seven-day week reached them via Latin, as did both the
ecclesiastical and the planetary naming systems. For the
planetary names they used loan translations that in some
cases (including that of Friday) involved mythological
'translation' as well. In particular, they translated
Venus to Frigg.

The Indo-European languages now have various mixtures of
the two systems and in a few cases some innovations.
Portuguese is exceptional in Western Europe in using the
ecclesiastical system exclusively. At the other extreme
are Breton and Welsh, which preserve (borrowings of) all
seven Latin planetary names, and English, which preserves
their Germanic loan translations. (My favorite innovation
is Icelandic <laugardagur> 'Saturday', literally 'bath
day'.)

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

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <yaubacwbha1s.1b...@40tude.net>,

Awwwww.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Friday, 15 January 2016 17:34:49 UTC, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> I'd expect Dorothy to remember this, but....
>
> Back in the early days of the internet, before the web, usenet and
> mailing lists reigned supreme. One of the popular mailing list
> management programs was 'listserv'. SF-Lovers (the ancestor of
> this group) ran on listserv.
>
> Listserv allowed people to subscribe and unsubscribe by sending
> specially crafted email messages to the list address at the
> listserv. In particular, sending 'unsubscribe' as the sole body
> of a message would unsubscribe you. Subscription was only a little
> more complicated.
>
> Before The September which Never Ended (starting 1993), many new
> undergrads would start using their shiny new internet accounts,
> often their first contact with the net, and many would subscribe to
> SF-Lovers.
>
> However, finding that the level of traffic back then would
> rapidly swamp their disk quotas, they'd try to unsubscribe.
> They'd get it wrong, putting the 'unsubscribe' command in the
> subject line, mispelling it, or both. Many would get very
> frustrated, and complain on the list.
>
> This got to be a running joke, since which time messages which
> just say 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' have carried special
> meaning in the group.

I don't know that particular history, but I have used
e-mail groups where the control messages (subscribe,
unsubscribe, digest) were to be sent not to the group
address, but IIRC a "majordomo" address - but getting
/that/ wrong was quite common, and looked about the same.

I'm not sure if "SUBSCRIBE" strictly makes sense,
as, don't you have to /be/ subscribed to the list,
in order to see the message that you're replying to?
So, the negative use might have been the first to
appear in the rhetorical usage. And then "SUBSCRIBE"
represents poorly considered enthusiasm.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 05:25:51 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
Heydt) wrote:

[snip]

>And their original gods, who mind you had descended by winding
>ways from the same Indo-European gods that the Greeks' gods had,
>became much more like the Greek gods once they encountered them.
>Venus, for instance, was originally a garden goddess before she
>assimilated to Aphrodite. (I had this from no less an expert
>than Joseph Fontenrose.)
>
>I got a story out of that phenomenon, in fact, when my character
>Cynthia rejuvenated the Olympian gods by telling them their Roman
>names. :)

I liked that one.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <1aij9bpis1epb7mlm...@4ax.com>,

Thank you.

If we ever manage to get stuff online, _The Witch of Syracuse_ --
which Betsy Wollheim declined to buy (having bought all the
component stories for _Sword and Sorceress_) will go online too.

She said it didn't have a plot.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <9d4f092b-b466-4ed1...@googlegroups.com>,

Robert Carnegie <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:
>On Friday, 15 January 2016 17:34:49 UTC, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> Back in the early days of the internet, before the web, usenet and
>> mailing lists reigned supreme. One of the popular mailing list
>> management programs was 'listserv'. SF-Lovers (the ancestor of
>> this group) ran on listserv.

>I don't know that particular history, but I have used
>e-mail groups where the control messages (subscribe,
>unsubscribe, digest) were to be sent not to the group
>address, but IIRC a "majordomo" address - but getting
>/that/ wrong was quite common, and looked about the same.

LISTSERV predates Majordomo. LISTSERV was an IBM mainframe program,
and it originally was used primarily on BITNET, an early
store-and-forward network that was built on top of leased lines
sending virtual punched-card decks over leased telephone lines
connecting universities. (Among other things, it was infamous for
including in its responses a summary of the CPU and I/O resources used
in responding to the request.) (If I remember correctly, the guy who
wrote it originally was a systems programmer for FRECP1 at the Ecole
Centrale de Paris.) The BITNET email system was simply an IBM email
product that already existed and was used internally to IBM and at
the few commercial IBM customers that were large enough to have more
than one computer.

The ARPANET convention, which predated mailing-list manager software,
was to send requests to <Listname-Request@List-Host>. (Like BITNET,
pre-DNS ARPANET had non-hierarchical host names and a globally
distributed host address file, so MIT-MC was a machine owned by the
Macsyma Consortium at MIT[1], SU-AI was the machine at the Stanford
University Artificial Intelligence lab, ISI-B was the second computer
at Information Sciences Institute, and WSMR-EMH1 was Electronic Mail
Host number 1 at White Sands Missile Range.) People were expected to
know this convention (after all, they must have figured it out to get
on the list in the first place) and were sometimes roundly flamed for
sending "administrivia" to the list address rather than the -request
address.

There are people around who were actually there for this history; I
started just about the time the ARPANET was finally being shut off,
having been obsoleted by NSFNET, although MILNET continued to exist,
with many old machines continuing at their same names (and
26.host.0.imp IP addresses) until they were finally decommissioned,
like the famous WSMR-SIMTEL20 and WRAIR-EMH1, just to name a few.

-GAWollman

[1] The local names at MIT were mostly two letters: at various times
there were machines called AI, DM, MC, ML, MX, OZ, and XX, all PDP-10s
except for one PDP-6. The people who weren't in 36-bit land tended to
prefer longer names, so MIT-EDDIE was a Unix machine in the EECS
department (which still exists, several hardware generations removed),
and MIT-MULTICS was the production Multics machine. Lisp machines had
longer names still, but of course their users almost never had to type
them because the lispm operating systems had (have!) autocomplete.
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

It was used naively by people who apparently had learnt that sending a
messages containing SUBSCRIBE would get them onto the mailing list. Then
misapplied that to Usenet, IRC, AOL forums, and the nascent new artform
of web forums.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
My swerver room, my patch panels. By the time they figure out why none of the
ports on their floor box work anymore I'll be done, dusted and down the pub
with a pint of something brewed with yeast that was smarter than they are.
-- Matt S Trout, asr

[William Hyde]

On Thursday, 14 January 2016 21:16:03 UTC-5, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>
> > In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,
> > Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,
> >
> > I hadn't heard that ...
>
> I've seen it claimed frequently, but have not seen any convincing
> examples.

This might be one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid#Brigid_and_Saint_Brigid

In one story (though I'm sure it was never doctrine) the Emperor Trajan - somewhat dubiously asserted to be among the best of men - was allowed a unique post-death opportunity to convert to Christianity. As dead people cannot change their ways, the story has him brought back to life for three days to convert. Rather tough on his wife, I'd have thought.

Philip the Arab - quite possibly the first Christian emperor - never got such attention.

William Hyde

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <401f0ec5-73f2-4571...@googlegroups.com>,

William Hyde <wthyd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thursday, 14 January 2016 21:16:03 UTC-5, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>>
>> > In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,
>> > Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,
>> >
>> > I hadn't heard that ...
>>
>> I've seen it claimed frequently, but have not seen any convincing
>> examples.
>
>This might be one:
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid#Brigid_and_Saint_Brigid
>
>In one story (though I'm sure it was never doctrine) the Emperor Trajan
>- somewhat dubiously asserted to be among the best of men - was allowed
>a unique post-death opportunity to convert to Christianity.

Yes, that's in Dante's _Commedia._

> As dead
>people cannot change their ways, the story has him brought back to life
>for three days to convert. Rather tough on his wife, I'd have thought.
>
>Philip the Arab - quite possibly the first Christian emperor - never got
>such attention.

Yeah, Constantine grabbed it all off. :)

[William Hyde]

And the Posca party said he was a secret Zoroastrian, anyway.

William Hyde

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2016 05:23:25 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J

Heydt) wrote:

>In article <1aij9bpis1epb7mlm...@4ax.com>,
>Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> wrote:
>>On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 05:25:51 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>Heydt) wrote:

[snip]

>>>I got a story out of that phenomenon, in fact, when my character
>>>Cynthia rejuvenated the Olympian gods by telling them their Roman
>>>names. :)
>>
>> I liked that one.
>
>Thank you.
>
>If we ever manage to get stuff online, _The Witch of Syracuse_ --
>which Betsy Wollheim declined to buy (having bought all the
>component stories for _Sword and Sorceress_) will go online too.

I did not realise that there were so many Cynthia stories. I
would buy a book collection of them all.

>She said it didn't have a plot.

???

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Dorothy J Heydt]

In article <scll9b9hvdr9qepc0...@4ax.com>,

Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> wrote:
>On Sat, 16 Jan 2016 05:23:25 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>Heydt) wrote:
>
>>In article <1aij9bpis1epb7mlm...@4ax.com>,
>>Gene Wirchenko <ge...@telus.net> wrote:
>>>On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 05:25:51 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J
>>>Heydt) wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>>>I got a story out of that phenomenon, in fact, when my character
>>>>Cynthia rejuvenated the Olympian gods by telling them their Roman
>>>>names. :)
>>>
>>> I liked that one.
>>
>>Thank you.
>>
>>If we ever manage to get stuff online, _The Witch of Syracuse_ --
>>which Betsy Wollheim declined to buy (having bought all the
>>component stories for _Sword and Sorceress_) will go online too.
>
> I did not realise that there were so many Cynthia stories. I
>would buy a book collection of them all.

There's about nineteen or twenty of them. I would have to go and
count. Anyway, they take Cynthia from the fall of Margaron (on
the tippy-toe of the Italian boot) widdershins around the Med,
finally back to Italy where she settles down in Rome.

>
>>She said it didn't have a plot.
>
> ???

That's what she said.

At least the thing doesn't need special fonts. If we can get
_TIL_ online, _Witch_ will be a relative cinch.

[Default User]

Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:

> On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 20:29:44 -0800 (PST), Robert Carnegie
> <rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

> > I'm not sure if "SUBSCRIBE" strictly makes sense,

> > as, don't you have to be subscribed to the list,

> > in order to see the message that you're replying to?
>
> It was used naively by people who apparently had learnt that sending a
> messages containing SUBSCRIBE would get them onto the mailing list.
> Then misapplied that to Usenet, IRC, AOL forums, and the nascent new
> artform of web forums.

Back in the day, and perhaps still, there was a way to have usenet
group messages sent to email. New users would sometimes get that going
either unintentionally or without understanding what it entailed. There
would then start to appear messages from the person demanding that
people stop sending emails.


Brian

[Joe Pfeiffer]

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:

> In article <1bio2vz...@pfeifferfamily.net>,

> Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>>djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:
>>
>>> In article <52a7aa05-0a2f-40df...@googlegroups.com>,
>>> Jack Bohn <jack....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>I'd heard a lot of northern gods and heroes were "baptised" into saints,
>>>
>>> I hadn't heard that ...
>>
>>I've seen it claimed frequently, but have not seen any convincing
>>examples.
>>

>>> but it's clear that many pagan holidays
>>> were turned into Christian saints' days, since they were so
>>> important to the agricultural year.
>>

>>My impression has been very slightly different from that -- not that
>>they were important to the agricultural year, but that the people were
>>accustomed to celebrating *something* that day, so let's give 'em
>>something Christian to celebrate.
>

> Yes. But a lot of the major pagan holidays -- particularly in
> Northern Europe -- *were* tied to the agricultural year. The
> further north you go, the shorter the growing season, and you
> have to keep closer track of when to plant and when to harvest
> than in, say, the Middle East.
>
> The important pagan (and hence, Christian) festivals were the
> quarter days -- solstices and equinoxes -- and the cross-quarter
> days, which were halfway in between the quarter days.
>
> The next cross-quarter day coming up is February 2, which the
> Celtic pagans called Imbolc and the Christians called Candlemas.

I guess what I meant to say is that there was an extra step involved in
putting the Christian holidays where they did; it wasn't *directly* that
they were agriculturally important.

[Dan Tilque]

Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>
> Well, yes. That went both ways: celebrating the Nativity of the
> Lord in December, while the pagans were celebrating Saturnalia,
> gave the Christians something to do *and made it less obvious
> that they were not celebrating Saturnalia.*

Christmas was not that big of a holiday before about the 19th century,
so there was no big celebration that they had to explain away. Besides
which, Saturnalia actually ended a couple days before Christmas.

The main reason Christmas is on the 25th of December is that that was
the nominal winter solstice during the Roman Empire. The actual solstice
happens on either of two days because the year is not an exact
multiple of days long, but the 25th was still considered the solstice.


--
Dan Tilque

[Dan Tilque]

Robert Carnegie wrote:
> ...which I think they may have got slightly and splendidly wrong:
>
> "Deputy Director in charge of the Solar System"
>
...
>
> And I want to know what else there is a Deputy Director In Charge Of, there.
> Maybe the Fourth Dimension? Future Time? The Micro-Verse?

Dunno, but there is a NASA position with the title of "Mars Czar". If I
had that position, I'd probably change it to "Czar of all the Marses".

There's also a Planetary Protection Officer at NASA, which Randall
Munroe thinks is possibly the best job title of all time.

http://what-if.xkcd.com/117/

--
Dan Tilque

[Kevrob]

On Monday, January 18, 2016 at 11:15:10 PM UTC-5, Dan Tilque wrote:
> Robert Carnegie wrote:
> > ...which I think they may have got slightly and splendidly wrong:
> >
> > "Deputy Director in charge of the Solar System"
> >
> ...
> >
> > And I want to know what else there is a Deputy Director In Charge Of, there.
> > Maybe the Fourth Dimension? Future Time? The Micro-Verse?
>
> Dunno, but there is a NASA position with the title of "Mars Czar". If I
> had that position, I'd probably change it to "Czar of all the Marses".
>

High Jeddak of Barsoom, for me.

> There's also a Planetary Protection Officer at NASA, which Randall
> Munroe thinks is possibly the best job title of all time.
>
> http://what-if.xkcd.com/117/
>
> --
> Dan Tilque

Kevin R

[Cryptoengineer]

Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote in
news:85ccb4ce-094d-415a...@googlegroups.com:

Just for the record: His job is not protecting the planet Earth.

pt

[Dan Tilque]

Well, it should be. Consider that Earth has been invaded, attacked,
destroyed, etc. more than all other planets combined. It needs some
planetary protection.

--
Dan Tilque

[The Last Doctor]

That's just parochial bias. Try reading more of the literature of other
worlds - they've been just as devastated as Earth. Those stories just never
seem to make the same headlines over here.

--
"I am and always will be the optimist.
The hoper of far-flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams."

[David DeLaney]

On 2016-01-19, Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> On Monday, January 18, 2016 at 11:15:10 PM UTC-5, Dan Tilque wrote:
>> Robert Carnegie wrote:
>> > ...which I think they may have got slightly and splendidly wrong:
>> >
>> > "Deputy Director in charge of the Solar System"
>> >

>> > And I want to know what else there is a Deputy Director In Charge Of,
>> > there.
>> > Maybe the Fourth Dimension? Future Time? The Micro-Verse?
>>
>> Dunno, but there is a NASA position with the title of "Mars Czar". If I
>> had that position, I'd probably change it to "Czar of all the Marses".
>
> High Jeddak of Barsoom, for me.

I'm satisfied with being the Cat-Herder of Highly-Eccentric-Orbit Objects,
personally.

>> There's also a Planetary Protection Officer at NASA, which Randall
>> Munroe thinks is possibly the best job title of all time.
>>
>> http://what-if.xkcd.com/117/

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

[Robert Carnegie]

I think the "Defenders of the Earth" have it covered.
(Amongst other protectors, but they got the title.)

[Peter Trei]

Which planet invaded which planet with a one ton atomic robot armed with
a laser weapon capable of vaporizing solid rock?

...along with bacteria from the invading planet, which the PPO is
concerned with. We already know what our little brothers do to
Martians: HG Wells told us.

pt

[Titus G]

On 19/01/2016 7:53 p.m., The Last Doctor wrote:
> Dan Tilque <dti...@frontier.com> wrote:
>> Cryptoengineer wrote:
>>>> On Monday, January 18, 2016 at 11:15:10 PM UTC-5, Dan Tilque wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> There's also a Planetary Protection Officer at NASA, which Randall
>>>>> Munroe thinks is possibly the best job title of all time.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://what-if.xkcd.com/117/
>>>
>>> Just for the record: His job is not protecting the planet Earth.
>>
>> Well, it should be. Consider that Earth has been invaded, attacked,
>> destroyed, etc. more than all other planets combined. It needs some
>> planetary protection.
>>
>
> That's just parochial bias. Try reading more of the literature of other
> worlds - they've been just as devastated as Earth. Those stories just never
> seem to make the same headlines over here.

It is significant that other worlds sharing our sun named themselves
after Roamin' Gods whilst humans named Earth after that stuff the
Judeaick God condemned mankind to scratch in for a living. But now,
anything in regard to Roman gods is mythology and Earth was destroyed
but once in The Bible when the Holy Bathtub overfloweth but that is
another story. To judge which world has been destroyed most recently,
signs of life would be the minimum criterion. There may be argument
debating whether local or central government employees show signs of
life and politicians when not campaigning for office. Whether posting to
usenet counts as such is also questionable.
Perhaps the obvious answer is that there is only the one Planetary
Protection Officer. If the threat were real, (or politically profitable
to pretend it was real), then there would be an entire HomePlanet
Security Department with backhanders and inflated budgets everywhere.

(Like there is on World Pluto where they have convinced all the other
worlds that they are not even a planet.)

[David DeLaney]

On 2016-01-20, Titus G <no...@nowhere.com> wrote:
...
> signs of life would be the minimum criterion. [...] Whether posting to

> usenet counts as such is also questionable.

Posting to Usenet isn't actually a plus or a minus. It's more of an addition
of the imaginary axis.

> (Like there is on World Pluto where they have convinced all the other
> worlds that they are not even a planet.)

But Planet X has entered the race as a dark horse very recently!!

Dave, they're analysing gravitational influences again, Marge

[Kevrob]

On Thursday, January 21, 2016 at 4:12:58 AM UTC-5, David DeLaney wrote:
> On 2016-01-20, Titus G <no...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> ...
> > signs of life would be the minimum criterion. [...] Whether posting to
> > usenet counts as such is also questionable.
>
> Posting to Usenet isn't actually a plus or a minus. It's more of an addition
> of the imaginary axis.
>
> > (Like there is on World Pluto where they have convinced all the other
> > worlds that they are not even a planet.)
>
> But Planet X has entered the race as a dark horse very recently!!
>
> Dave, they're analysing gravitational influences again, Marge
> --

If we aren't counting Pluto, X=IX.

Kevin R

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord

Cryptoengineer <treif...@gmail.com> writes:

> They'd get it wrong, putting the 'unsubscribe' command in the
> subject line, mispelling it, or both. Many would get very
> frustrated, and complain on the list.

Some of these people would find themselves subscribed to the legendary
Clueless Users Network Test Service, a mailing list whose only purpose
was to educate and/or punish idiots.

--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press

[William December Starr]

In-reply-to: kev...@my-deja.com

In article <844b6fee-7776-437d...@googlegroups.com>,
Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com> said:

> I'd put that odd name down to the "camp" influence of the
> Batman TV show. The issue even had go-go checks!

Did they bounce?

--
wds

[William December Starr]

In-reply-to: jai...@sometimes.sessile.org

In article <rlal9bpfjnrbris3e...@4ax.com>,
Jaimie Vandenbergh <jai...@sometimes.sessile.org> said:

[ in his sig-quote: ]

> My swerver room, my patch panels. By the time they figure out why none of the
> ports on their floor box work anymore I'll be done, dusted and down the pub
> with a pint of something brewed with yeast that was smarter than they are.

> Matt S Trout, asr

Is "swerver" a bit of Bastard Operator From Hell jargon, or just a typo?

--
wds

[William December Starr]

In-reply-to: dti...@frontier.com

In article <n7kltq$6p0$1...@dont-email.me>,
Dan Tilque <dti...@frontier.com> said:

> Cryptoengineer wrote:
>
>>>> There's also a Planetary Protection Officer at NASA, which Randall
>>>> Munroe thinks is possibly the best job title of all time.
>>>>
>>>> http://what-if.xkcd.com/117/
>>
>> Just for the record: His job is not protecting the planet Earth.
>
> Well, it should be. Consider that Earth has been invaded, attacked,
> destroyed, etc. more than all other planets combined. It needs some
> planetary protection.

The Oxygen Catastrophe was an inside job, though.

--
wds

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

On 7 Feb 2016 08:39:48 -0500, wds...@panix.com (William December Starr)
wrote:

Very BOFH/Simon, yes. The 'asr' in the attribution is the newsgroup
alt.sysadmin.recovery, now unfortunately largely moribund.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
I was most impressed when I looked up into the London sky and saw
a star through all the light pollution. A few of us checked some
astronomy references to try and identify it, and we're reasonably
confident that it was Sol. -- Peter Corlett, asr

[Quadibloc]

On Friday, January 15, 2016 at 10:11:42 AM UTC-7, Kevrob wrote:
> On Friday, January 15, 2016 at 8:22:41 AM UTC-5, William December Starr wrote:

> > While there, he not only discovered the actions of the Solar
> > Council, but battled another Pol Manning, a sinister replica of
> > himself. Green Lantern's great willpower and his power ring had
> > created an evil duplicate Pol Manning, known as Doctor Strangehate.

> > ...to which I say "Ow."

> I'd put that odd name down to the "camp" influence of the
> Batman TV show. The issue even had go-go checks!

I'd blame Stanley Kubrick, myself. Actually, he would get the credit, while
someone at DC would be blamed...

John Savard

[Kevrob]

Many issues bounced back to the distributors' warehouses. :)

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/05/03/365-reasons-to-love-comics-123/

Kevin R

[Kevrob]

..and Terry Southern, and Peter George? :)

> while someone at DC would be blamed...

Kevin R

[Steve Coltrin]

begin fnord

djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) writes:

> I wish I could think that the early Germanic speakers named the
> days of the week from the same gods that the Romans did, but I
> consider it highly unlikely.

Maybe unlikely but not utterly impossible on the face of it; a raised-Hindu
friend of mine considers the Greco-Roman gods to be the same as the Hindu
ones, just under different names. And we're all Indo-Europeans here, after
all.

Meanwhile on the other side of Eurasia, the Japanese names for the classical
planets (excepting the Sun and the Moon) are based on the classical elements,
which over there are five in number, so you get "fire star", "wood star"
etc. And the names of the days of the week are "Sun day," "Fire day,"
Wood day," etc. (I'm 99.44% sure it's the same in Chinese.)

[William December Starr]

In article <m2h9hik...@kelutral.omcl.org>,

Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org> said:

> Meanwhile on the other side of Eurasia, the Japanese names for the
> classical planets (excepting the Sun and the Moon) are based on
> the classical elements, which over there are five in number, so
> you get "fire star", "wood star" etc. And the names of the days
> of the week are "Sun day," "Fire day," Wood day," etc. (I'm
> 99.44% sure it's the same in Chinese.)

Five classical elements, seven days in a week. Do they fill it out
with Sun and Moon?

-- wds

[David Goldfarb]

In article <n9jnrc$9a5$1...@panix2.panix.com>,

Yes. Their sun-day and moon-day are the same as our Sunday
and Monday; they got the seven-day week from us, unless I'm
greatly mistaken.

--
David Goldfarb |"I suppose an idiot plot is better than
goldf...@gmail.com | no plot at all."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Katie Schwarz

[David Goldfarb]

In article <o2F87...@kithrup.com>,

David Goldfarb <goldf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>In article <n9jnrc$9a5$1...@panix2.panix.com>,
>William December Starr <wds...@panix.com> wrote:
>>In article <m2h9hik...@kelutral.omcl.org>,
>>Steve Coltrin <spco...@omcl.org> said:
>>
>>> Meanwhile on the other side of Eurasia, the Japanese names for the
>>> classical planets (excepting the Sun and the Moon) are based on
>>> the classical elements, which over there are five in number, so
>>> you get "fire star", "wood star" etc. And the names of the days
>>> of the week are "Sun day," "Fire day," Wood day," etc. (I'm
>>> 99.44% sure it's the same in Chinese.)
>>
>>Five classical elements, seven days in a week. Do they fill it out
>>with Sun and Moon?
>
>Yes. Their sun-day and moon-day are the same as our Sunday
>and Monday; they got the seven-day week from us, unless I'm
>greatly mistaken.

Come to think of it, the parallels are even closer: if you compare
the day-names to the appropriate planets, we find that the Western
names for those planets correspond to the gods that name those days
in Europe (e.g., in France).

Kayobi == fire == Kasei == Mars == Mardi (Tuesday)
Suiyobi == water == Suisei == Mercury == Mercredi
Mokuyobi == wood == Mokusei == Jupiter (Jove) == Jeudi
Kinyobi == metal == Kinsei == Venus == Vendredi
Doyobi == earth == Dosei == Saturn == Samedi

There is just no way that this arose by chance.

--
David Goldfarb |"I don't believe in astrology because
goldf...@gmail.com | I'm a Gemini."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | -- Raymond Smullyan