On Oct 31, 12:10 pm, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <7l35djF3b6gl...@mid.individual.net>, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote: > >Don't forget that the boys are draining their vitality levels to be > >"fit" for the upcoming battles.
> Maybe they can recharge when they get down to the Dyne?
> (Image from _Tron_, the programs recharging their batteries by > scooping up ... fluid ... with their frisbee disks)
On Oct 30, 4:45 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> That isn't to say that she /stays/ home; future stories with Zeetha > may be when she just decides to come back to Europe and hangdout with > Agatha some more.
I think that would be "future" as in "after volume 24 has been published, ending the original Girl Genius story arc", sometime around the end of the year 2022.
Sadly, even then we probably won't have robots and flying cars, although we _already_ have flat-screen televisions. In fact, it's by no means certain that there will be a permanent base on the Moon, or that an astronaut will have visited Mars, by then.
Joel Polowin wrote: > On Oct 31, 12:10 pm, djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote: >> In article <7l35djF3b6gl...@mid.individual.net>, Greg Goss >> <go...@gossg.org> wrote: >>> Don't forget that the boys are draining their vitality levels to be >>> "fit" for the upcoming battles.
>> Maybe they can recharge when they get down to the Dyne?
>> (Image from _Tron_, the programs recharging their batteries by >> scooping up ... fluid ... with their frisbee disks)
Is he drinking the weird glowy stuff from the pool of "Do Not Drink" or is he drinking coffee or tea or whatever from the urn to the viewer's right of where he is sitting?
> Is he drinking the weird glowy stuff from the pool of "Do Not Drink" or is > he drinking coffee or tea or whatever from the urn to the viewer's right of > where he is sitting?
First panel on the next page shows that the bottom of his cup has dissolved. It's not conclusive, but it is suggestive.
Quadibloc wrote: > On Oct 30, 4:45 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
>> That isn't to say that she /stays/ home; future stories with Zeetha >> may be when she just decides to come back to Europe and hangdout with >> Agatha some more.
> I think that would be "future" as in "after volume 24 has been > published, ending the original Girl Genius story arc", sometime around > the end of the year 2022.
> Sadly, even then we probably won't have robots and flying cars, > although we _already_ have flat-screen televisions. In fact, it's by > no means certain that there will be a permanent base on the Moon, or > that an astronaut will have visited Mars, by then.
We have robots now--they just didn't turn out to be the kind with arms and legs that walk around and do people stuff.
Flying cars have come and gone several times but so far no market has developed. Right now the Israelis are working on yet another incarnation, partnered with Bell Aerospace, which built one of the '50s protypes that the Army tested.
A permanent base on the Moon or a visit to Mars is going to have to wait for the next cycle of civilization I suspect--until the current governments and their attendant social-services overhead have fallen and been replaced by survival-mode governments that do the minimum necessary to operate rather than trying to save Everyman from his own folly, there's no way that any government will fund such a program.
Byzantium _could_ have sent an expedition across the Atlantic any time they wanted to ,but they never even tried because the bureaucrats didn't see any point to diverting resources from bread and circuses and the pipe dream of reconquering the West.
>Byzantium _could_ have sent an expedition across the Atlantic any time they >wanted to ,but they never even tried because the bureaucrats didn't see any >point to diverting resources from bread and circuses and the pipe dream of >reconquering the West.
Given the geography, they would have to reconquer the West before they were free to mess around with the Atlantic. And so far as they knew, such an expedition would have to go most of the way around the Earth (whose size they would have known) before hitting land. I mean, *we* know that they would have hit habitable land with fresh water, game, etc. before going a fraction of that distance, but they didn't.
One of my favorite historical conspiracy theories is that Basque fisherman had been fishing the Grand Banks, knew that North America was there, Christopher Columbus got wind of it somehow, and came up with a sales pitch to get the Queen of Spain to fund an expedition figuring he would be able to make money off of the "discovery". That's why he claimed a bullshit value for the size of the Earth.
-- Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice." Autoreply is disabled |
Quadibloc wrote: > On Oct 30, 4:45 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> > That isn't to say that she /stays/ home; future stories with Zeetha > > may be when she just decides to come back to Europe and hangdout with > > Agatha some more.
> I think that would be "future" as in "after volume 24 has been > published, ending the original Girl Genius story arc", sometime around > the end of the year 2022.
Well, yes and no; I have in mind "Personal Trainer" and the "radio" stories.
I see it like this; if Agatha, Klaus, or anyone else enables Zeetha to return to Skifander and report to her monarch, Zeetha and Agatha will still be in a relationship of "ah-bot" and "koh-stel-oh" or whatever it is, and "Personal Trainer" shows that future-Zeetha considers Agatha a work-in-progress, so she will come back. Anyway, Skifander in summer could be expletiveing hot. Maybe. It looks to me like it's underground. That would be cooler.
> Sadly, even then we probably won't have robots and flying cars, > although we _already_ have flat-screen televisions. In fact, it's by > no means certain that there will be a permanent base on the Moon, or > that an astronaut will have visited Mars, by then.
Juho Julkunen wrote: > In article <1256861...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop (thro...@sheol.org) > says... > > :: Plus, if it's time for Bang to discover Zeetha, Bang might turn into > > :: a faction with her own aganda...
> > : djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) > > : In that fight, my money's on Zeetha.
> > Oh my yes. Bang is so proud of being a pirate and "doing this for a > > living"... but Zeetha singlehandedly (well, dual-bladedly?) took out an > > entire pirate airship fleet and fortress, chock full of pirates "doing > > this for a living". While still recovering from a debilitating disease. > > Making Klaus' handling of her all that much more impressive.
> Well, he can drop a Jäger with one backhander.
Isn't that a bribe? Or, the internet says, an insult. Or being given a drink when it was someone else's turn. Or, indeed, a strike with the back of the hand.
Now how do I feel about taking down a Jager with "Here, drink this." Well, at least it's hospitable.
>A permanent base on the Moon or a visit to Mars is going to have to wait for >the next cycle of civilization I suspect--until the current governments and >their attendant social-services overhead have fallen and been replaced by >survival-mode governments that do the minimum necessary to operate rather >than trying to save Everyman from his own folly, there's no way that any >government will fund such a program.
Robert Carnegie wrote: > Juho Julkunen wrote: >> In article <1256861...@sheol.org>, Wayne Throop (thro...@sheol.org) >> says... >>>>> Plus, if it's time for Bang to discover Zeetha, Bang might turn >>>>> into a faction with her own aganda...
>>>> djhe...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) >>>> In that fight, my money's on Zeetha.
>>> Oh my yes. Bang is so proud of being a pirate and "doing this for a >>> living"... but Zeetha singlehandedly (well, dual-bladedly?) took >>> out an entire pirate airship fleet and fortress, chock full of >>> pirates "doing this for a living". While still recovering from a >>> debilitating disease. Making Klaus' handling of her all that much >>> more impressive.
>> Well, he can drop a Jäger with one backhander.
> Isn't that a bribe? Or, the internet says, an insult. Or being given > a drink when it was someone else's turn. Or, indeed, a strike with > the back of the hand.
> Now how do I feel about taking down a Jager with "Here, drink this." > Well, at least it's hospitable.
And if it's a Jager then it might even work--I can't believe that anything that vile is actually marketable.
James Nicoll wrote: > In article <hcie3t0...@news6.newsguy.com>, > J. Clarke <jclarke.use...@cox.net> wrote: >> A permanent base on the Moon or a visit to Mars is going to have to wait for >> the next cycle of civilization I suspect--until the current governments and >> their attendant social-services overhead have fallen and been replaced by >> survival-mode governments that do the minimum necessary to operate rather >> than trying to save Everyman from his own folly, there's no way that any >> government will fund such a program.
> Why would you imagine a 'survival-mode' government would > finance off-world exploration?
That certainly makes no sense to me. Unless what he means is that the permanent base would then be built by the Rugged Individualists who, freed from the fetters of the all-encompassing government, would be able to colonize the planets as they should.
By the way, one complaint I've heard is that a major reason for not sending men to Mars, etc., has to do with concerns of contaminating the other planets with our bacteria, etc. I know there are policies to prevent us from doing this currently in place, but are they designed/worded such that building a base on, say, Mars would be effectively impossible under them? And, if so, would they apply to a private expedition by Rugged Individuals, or only apply to government expeditions like those of NASA?
James Nicoll wrote: > In article <hcie3t0...@news6.newsguy.com>, > J. Clarke <jclarke.use...@cox.net> wrote:
>> A permanent base on the Moon or a visit to Mars is going to have to >> wait for the next cycle of civilization I suspect--until the current >> governments and their attendant social-services overhead have fallen >> and been replaced by survival-mode governments that do the minimum >> necessary to operate rather than trying to save Everyman from his >> own folly, there's no way that any government will fund such a >> program.
> Why would you imagine a 'survival-mode' government would > finance off-world exploration?
It wouldn't, but it would grow to a point where it could finance such activities before its bureaucracy became so bloated that it could not longer support such activities.
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote: >James Nicoll wrote: >> In article <hcie3t0...@news6.newsguy.com>, >> J. Clarke <jclarke.use...@cox.net> wrote: >>> A permanent base on the Moon or a visit to Mars is going to have to wait for >>> the next cycle of civilization I suspect--until the current governments and >>> their attendant social-services overhead have fallen and been replaced by >>> survival-mode governments that do the minimum necessary to operate rather >>> than trying to save Everyman from his own folly, there's no way that any >>> government will fund such a program.
>> Why would you imagine a 'survival-mode' government would >> finance off-world exploration?
> That certainly makes no sense to me. Unless what he means is that the >permanent base would then be built by the Rugged Individualists who, >freed from the fetters of the all-encompassing government, would be able >to colonize the planets as they should.
> By the way, one complaint I've heard is that a major reason for not >sending men to Mars, etc., has to do with concerns of contaminating the >other planets with our bacteria, etc. I know there are policies to >prevent us from doing this currently in place, but are they >designed/worded such that building a base on, say, Mars would be >effectively impossible under them? And, if so, would they apply to a >private expedition by Rugged Individuals, or only apply to government >expeditions like those of NASA?
Pshaw. If they were *really* Rugged Individuals, they wouldn't care.
-- Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank]
> James Nicoll wrote: >> In article <hcie3t0...@news6.newsguy.com>, >> J. Clarke <jclarke.use...@cox.net> wrote: >>> A permanent base on the Moon or a visit to Mars is going to have to >>> wait for the next cycle of civilization I suspect--until the >>> current governments and their attendant social-services overhead >>> have fallen and been replaced by survival-mode governments that do >>> the minimum necessary to operate rather than trying to save >>> Everyman from his own folly, there's no way that any government >>> will fund such a program.
>> Why would you imagine a 'survival-mode' government would >> finance off-world exploration?
> That certainly makes no sense to me. Unless what he means is that the > permanent base would then be built by the Rugged Individualists who, > freed from the fetters of the all-encompassing government, would be > able to colonize the planets as they should.
No, I mean that such a government will take time to grow the stifling bureaucracy, and there will be a window in which it has wealth that it has not committed to bread and circuses.
You assume that a survival mode government will always and forever be a survival mode government.
The point is that you don't get rid of the bureaucrats until the society collapses under its own weight, and you don't accomplish anything when you are topheavy with bureaucrats doling out bread and circuses.
> By the way, one complaint I've heard is that a major reason for not > sending men to Mars, etc., has to do with concerns of contaminating > the other planets with our bacteria, etc. I know there are policies to > prevent us from doing this currently in place, but are they > designed/worded such that building a base on, say, Mars would be > effectively impossible under them? And, if so, would they apply to a > private expedition by Rugged Individuals, or only apply to government > expeditions like those of NASA?
<seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote: > By the way, one complaint I've heard is that a major reason for not > sending men to Mars, etc., has to do with concerns of contaminating the > other planets with our bacteria, etc. I know there are policies to > prevent us from doing this currently in place, but are they > designed/worded such that building a base on, say, Mars would be > effectively impossible under them?
It isn't the wording of the policies that is the problem. The problem is, the movie "Andromeda Strain" notwithstanding, that while it's possible to create gnotobiotic mice, you wouldn't really want to do that with _people_.
So the idea is that you look for life on Mars with automatic probes, and, after you've settled that there isn't any, these policies can then be abandoned as pointless, and then you can land men on Mars. It's a little more complicated than this, since not everyone is agreed that the situation is really that bad.
On Oct 31, 12:56 pm, Joel Polowin <jpolo...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 31, 3:06 pm, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.use...@cox.net> wrote: > > Is he drinking the weird glowy stuff from the pool of "Do Not Drink" or is > > he drinking coffee or tea or whatever from the urn to the viewer's right of > > where he is sitting?
> First panel on the next page shows that the bottom of his cup has > dissolved. It's not conclusive, but it is suggestive.
Plus the only urn to the right of him in the picture is in the middle panel, where it seems to be against the wall... and it is likely to be a fire extinguisher rather than a coffee pot, sitting as it is on the floor. So we don't see him ever getting close to it, but he is resting his foot on the edge of the green glowy stuff pit.
Robert Carnegie wrote: > Quadibloc wrote: >> On Oct 30, 4:45 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
>>> That isn't to say that she /stays/ home; future stories with Zeetha >>> may be when she just decides to come back to Europe and hangdout with >>> Agatha some more. >> I think that would be "future" as in "after volume 24 has been >> published, ending the original Girl Genius story arc", sometime around >> the end of the year 2022.
> Well, yes and no; I have in mind "Personal Trainer" and the "radio" > stories.
> I see it like this; if Agatha, Klaus, or anyone else enables Zeetha to > return to Skifander and report to her monarch, Zeetha and Agatha will > still be in a relationship of "ah-bot" and "koh-stel-oh" or whatever > it is, and "Personal Trainer" shows that future-Zeetha considers > Agatha a work-in-progress, so she will come back. Anyway, Skifander > in summer could be expletiveing hot. Maybe. It looks to me like it's > underground. That would be cooler.
>> Sadly, even then we probably won't have robots and flying cars, >> although we _already_ have flat-screen televisions. In fact, it's by >> no means certain that there will be a permanent base on the Moon, or >> that an astronaut will have visited Mars, by then.
> I guess we'll just have to read comics about it.
On Oct 31, 4:40 pm, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> Zeetha and Agatha will > still be in a relationship of "ah-bot" and "koh-stel-oh" or whatever > it is,
That would be "kolee" and "zumil"...
> and "Personal Trainer" shows that future-Zeetha considers > Agatha a work-in-progress, so she will come back.
It could well be that although Zeetha will find her home in the main arc, she will come back to visit, and this could explain the Personal Trainer short story. Cinderella, like the Weasel Queen, does not need an explanation; these stories are clearly out of continuity.
> > Sadly, even then we probably won't have robots and flying cars, > > although we _already_ have flat-screen televisions. In fact, it's by > > no means certain that there will be a permanent base on the Moon, or > > that an astronaut will have visited Mars, by then. > I guess we'll just have to read comics about it.
Just noting that the end of the story seems to be in the distant future, but not so distant as to refute G. K. Chesterton! Although the idea that the absence of flying cars is a proof of the existence of God is rather novel. Or perhaps the fact that H. G. Wells' Fabian socialism flew in the face of human nature was more to the point.
On Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:56:45 -0700, Joel Polowin wrote: > On Oct 31, 3:06 pm, "J. Clarke" <jclarke.use...@cox.net> wrote: >> Joel Polowin wrote: >> > I don't know. Moloch is the one with the habit of casually drinking >> > weird glowy stuff. >> >http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20031126
>> Is he drinking the weird glowy stuff from the pool of "Do Not Drink" or >> is he drinking coffee or tea or whatever from the urn to the viewer's >> right of where he is sitting?
> First panel on the next page shows that the bottom of his cup has > dissolved. It's not conclusive, but it is suggestive.
Then again, I have had some truck-stop coffee that had been on the heat so long that it came pretty close to dissolving a hole in the cup, not to mention a hole in my stomach.
-- John F. Eldredge -- j...@jfeldredge.com "Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
> James Nicoll wrote: > > In article <hcie3t0...@news6.newsguy.com>, > > J. Clarke <jclarke.use...@cox.net> wrote: > >> A permanent base on the Moon or a visit to Mars is going to have to wait for > >> the next cycle of civilization I suspect--until the current governments and > >> their attendant social-services overhead have fallen and been replaced by > >> survival-mode governments that do the minimum necessary to operate rather > >> than trying to save Everyman from his own folly, there's no way that any > >> government will fund such a program.
> > Why would you imagine a 'survival-mode' government would > > finance off-world exploration?
> That certainly makes no sense to me. Unless what he means is that the > permanent base would then be built by the Rugged Individualists who, > freed from the fetters of the all-encompassing government, would be able > to colonize the planets as they should.
> By the way, one complaint I've heard is that a major reason for not > sending men to Mars, etc., has to do with concerns of contaminating the > other planets with our bacteria, etc. I know there are policies to > prevent us from doing this currently in place, but are they > designed/worded such that building a base on, say, Mars would be > effectively impossible under them? And, if so, would they apply to a > private expedition by Rugged Individuals, or only apply to government > expeditions like those of NASA?
The Prime Directive is in force upon all Federation citizens. But not Klingons, Ferengi, Dominion, ... a.
In article <427c07a5-442f-4d30-93eb-1e76ed0a7...@f16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> said:
> The Prime Directive is in force upon all Federation citizens. But > not Klingons, Ferengi, Dominion, ... a.
I seem to recall that in the first-season ST:TNG episode "Angel One" it was strongly implied, if not stated outright, that it _didn't_ apply to Federation civilians.
But hey, Riker didn't even have a beard then so clearly it doesn't count.
On Nov 3, 8:43 am, wdst...@panix.com (William December Starr) wrote:
> In article <427c07a5-442f-4d30-93eb-1e76ed0a7...@f16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>, > Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> said:
> > The Prime Directive is in force upon all Federation citizens. But > > not Klingons, Ferengi, Dominion, ... a.
> I seem to recall that in the first-season ST:TNG episode "Angel One" > it was strongly implied, if not stated outright, that it _didn't_ > apply to Federation civilians.
> But hey, Riker didn't even have a beard then so clearly it doesn't > count.
Is it wrong to go by the definition of the Prime Directive used in the novel _Prime Directive_? ;-)
On Nov 3, 7:00 pm, Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Nov 3, 7:01 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> > Is it wrong to go by the definition of the Prime Directive used in the > > novel _Prime Directive_? ;-)
> Yes, it is. Novels aren't canon. They have been known to contradict > each other.
Okay, but in first season Next Generation, wasn't the Federation or Starfleet ultimately revealed as secretly run by Trills? So a lot of the orders will have been weird.
On Nov 4, 9:37 am, Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> Okay, but in first season Next Generation, wasn't the Federation or > Starfleet ultimately revealed as secretly run by Trills? So a lot of > the orders will have been weird.
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