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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

janet reid wrote:

Washington allows the use of chains from Nov 1 to Mar 1. It tears up the road if there isn't snow, but given you can only drive max 30 mph with them, it's not a long term solution. Snow tires is probably the way to go it you drive daily in conditions that require them. But what do I know, right? smile

It isn't really snow that demands chains or studs.  It's ice, often ice under snow where you can't see it.  Any all-season radial can handle two inches of fresh snow on a hard road, and more if you've got a high-ground-clearance vehicle.  But when the snow is packed, the road surface isn't hard, the grade is quite steep, or the there is running water or ice under the snow, things change.

A tire must provide dry adhesion.  It must provide adhesion with thin and heavy films of water.  It must provide adhesion wet or dry when there is a little bit of oil on the road surface (from fresh bitumen or from engines idling above).  It must drain standing water away when it hits standing water.  It should get some adhesion both on cold ice and on warm, wet ice.  It should have some adhesion on hard-packed snow, and its tread must cut into and grip both mud and looser snow (packing the snow to some degree).  And of course there's slush ... .

It's possible for a tire to excel in some of these areas and stink in others.  I've had such tires: a set of Pirelli's at a very nice price that were superb at everything except snow, and the OEM's on my present Chrysler, which were terrible in the rain.  (I replaced them with a set of Gooyear Assurance for about $50 less a tire and got improvements everywhere--a much better balance between good and bad conditions.  Still not cheap, but I feel they were worth what I paid.  Probably lost about 1/2 mpg.)

In addition, tire manufacturers want the tread to last, because people don't want to replace tires every 15,000 miles any more.  (Pure snow tires get a partial pass on this; when driven in the snow they don't get as much abrasion.)  They try to make general-purpose tires (M+S radials) quiet.  The automakers especially want quiet in their OEM tires because NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) is a major sales issue.  And the automakers want the tires to roll easily, to improve the CAFE numbers.  (Note that the difference between 27mpg and 32mpg in my car can be nothing more than the quality of the bitumen/aggregate surface!)

The modern tire is a marvel in how well it meets all of these requirements, and of course the synergy between mechanical construction and the chemistry of the rubber mix is half High Art and half Black Art.  (See the New Hacker's Dictionary for that last term--and related terms.)

Now here's a challenge:  How does a tire work, structurally?  How is the weight of the car transferred through the wheel and the parts of the tire to the road surface?  This is a good one to chew on.  I posed it to a fellow with a PhD in physics who'd worked in the field.  He solved it overnight--I suspect on the ride home.  Most people take a bit longer.  I think I'll hold the answer for the new year, unless someone gets very warm.

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Um, I'd say the air is evenly distributed in the tire and can't get out (no leaks), and that because some bright spark of an engineer has done the math that provides the height, cross-section. and air pressure of a tire that can stay inflated (not collapse) and support a range of weight. The weight of the car then is transferred through the sidewall of the tire to the ground. Over and under inflation of the tire messes with the math gone into the material thickness (layers of fabric or metal mesh), and the optimum air pressure needed to keep the tire inflated to where it can support the weight of the car without undue wear and tear or failure.
Under inflation results in most of the weight to be borne by the edges of the tire (the bottom of the sidewall) and less wear in the center of the tread. Over inflation causes some of the weight to be transferred to the middle of the tread causing more wear in the center.
Anyway, that's my guess. smile

1,078

Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

(Patting head excitedly)
Blood spells, um oh yeah, someone in the last book, some bad magician guy,l with the hidden room in the school, didn't he get kilt? Or was it just his food -taster servant guy?

1,079

Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

The sidewall plays a part, but not that part.  Remember, its strength is in tension.

1,080

Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Hey, New Jersey. Ernie caught a clew. That makes two of you. You aren't alone...

1,081

Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

I'm not so sure I caught one as had a few rammed into my arms.

1,082

Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

OK, well…fine…

Fair enough :-)

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

New chapter is up. Boy, I'm tired. I don't think there is much I can get done tonight, but I have the next two nights off. Will try to recip then. I owe you guys a million reviews.

Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Just getting caught up with this thread. Amy, Star Wars VII was not based on George Lucas's wishes. He offered Disney a three-part story treatment he had done, but they decided to do a reboot film instead. He has subsequently distanced himself from the film, complaining that it was just a rehash of old ideas. Like it or hate it, that film was all J. J. Abrams's work. Although I really like the diversity Abrams brought to the film, I'm generally not a fan of his work. I do plan to go see it anyway, even though I couldn't wait and read all the spoilers. tongue

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Didn't know that about JJ. Thanks.

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Yak Track

I'd put one on my head and the other on my ass. That's where I'd end up anyway...

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Rub it in, you Hawaii-living-the-dream guy!

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

To anyone interested, I'm going to the Chicago Writers Conference again this year. The invitation is open to any and all. This conference doesn't concentrate on science fiction or fantasy, but I've found it useful. They have a pitch-fest with publishers present for finished works. They recommended a variety of things that I'm using now, like a great site on twitter under #mswl (manuscript wish list) where I've been searching out possible publishers that might not throw my work in the trash.

I've gotten more out of this conference than just these two things, but I think it is wise to diversify…our site is a classic example. Having people who specialize in romance and history (rather than fantasy) means an impartial reader base. If these guys say they don't understand, then I know there is something I need to patch or fix.

Anyway, I'm gonna be there again. Kenny, get your damn passport. The dates will likely be in September or October again. Janet, if you fly out, I'll buy the wine!

http://www.chicagowritersconference.org/conference/

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

OK, another chapter of Dictates is up. "Eyes That Can See".  I'd toot my own horn, but this one was already mostly written and just needed revision once I knew the specific situation.

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

I'll have to give this one some thought.  It feels like some kind of turning point and rebuild in the story.  If you planned Taz-man for this, you did a really good job.

We'll see about ChiTown this year.  (Assuming that one R. Emanual doesn't find a way to scuttle a landlocked city.)

Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Well, I was totally planning on catching up with your work today, Amy (though I'm sure you have many reviewers with more skill than myself), but then someone decided to blow up the equipment on their yacht and all my downtime at the office just went down the drain. wink I'll get there, I swear!

-Elisheva

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

I have to say that yacht troubles has never been listed as problems with viewing my work. Poor stressed out yacht guy. And in the winter, too!

Thanks for the heads up and will enjoy whatever time you can spare!

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

So did you survive my review?

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

I lived through the experience. Feel free to whack away at the next one, too. I'm trying to figure out what the characters (especially Jaylene) are going to do now that she is closer to understanding Alda.

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Just an update. I've been putting shirt blurbs on my Facebook site. Figured that most of what I was seeing there was regurgitated material that people forward and family scrapbooks with an occasional infomercial and blogs about personal depression and hemorrhoids.

Fresh material...I can do that. After all, I'm a writer, right?

So I started giving updates about my autistic son. Then I started pointing out landmarks on the Ohio turnpike.  The writers conference told me to pick one source of media and do it well. So I don't post a lot of family photos. I try to skip forwarded material. Notable exceptions are things that make me laugh, geek moments, and pictures of things or places I want in my books.

Today, for the first time, someone friended me who I don't know. She is a friend of C's teacher from last year. I don't know what to think of this, except to say that I think what I am writing is of value to someone who is a stranger. Does that mean it has more value? Dunno. However, I think this is a milestone.

(Pats self on back)

Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

I'll catch up with reviews this week. This weekend was on and off.

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Amy, you sometimes reply that I think outside your box.  Let's see if I can show you part of mine.

In theater and cinema, the term 'blocking' refers to working out the movement of actors on stage or before the camera, and for cinema, the exact arrangement of shots.  (The scriptwriter will indicate Closeup on Cassius, Wide on Caesar, and sometimes there will be additional notes like Scars visible; but the actual blocking of shots is done by the director, who has a lot of work to do before the shoot.)

Many of my comments have to do with movement and action.  Unless the action is pulling me furiously, I construct the scene in my mind when I read.  Not always in the same detail, but enough to catch many oddities, and those make me look closer to see if I've misread.

On words like 'multiple': I don't read aloud to myself or move my lips when I read, but I do recall the sound-colors and sound-shapes of the words.  Small articles and very common words like 'for', 'to' (when used for the infinitive), and 'of' glide by almost unheard and copulas get only weak notice.

So the sounds and cadences of words matter, even though I read silently.  Somewhere, probably in Manchester's The Last Lion, I read of Churchill being told that to call a policy "both obsolete and reprehensible" (as he had) was meaningless.  It's not, but Churchill's reply was interesting.  He said (paraphrased) 'Listen to the B's'.

The two adjectives are linked by the 'B's and 'P's, labial stops that are sounded hard in those words.  When I hear or read a word like 'multiple' or 'rebarbative' I hear repeated hard-sounded stops.

When a native English speaker (who does not also speak Russian) hears Russian, he hears a multi-car pileup of guttural stops and fricatives.  That's an extreme example, but even in listening to English we pick out the pulse and flow of sound and shape our sense of meaning around it.  Is 'awkward' onomatopoeia?  Not by the standard definition, yet the word does picture the meaning.

That covers all but a handful of comments in my last review.  The others have to do with mental state, and I can't put my reading of moods on the same firm ground as the other comments.

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

I get that you hear meter and rhythm in words. I hear speech differently and don't analyze it. It's like the rhythm just IS. That's why I imitate accents really well.

Will read this part before I revise that chapter. Still in overload after putting out these three chapters.

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Try declaiming this (from The Pilgrim's Regress):

Behemoth is my serving man.
Before the conquered hosts of Pan
Riding tamed Leviathan
Loud I sing, for well I can:
Resurgem and IO PAEAN!  IO IO IO PAEAN!
Now I know the stake I played for.
Now I know what a worm's made for!

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Re: Acts/ Dictates/ Mandates/ Mantle - Amy's Thread

Don't know what you mean by 'declaiming' other than breaking down this piece into component parts. It isn't in Greek or Latin, and it doesn't cover a legal situation or advice on how a hero should act.

Have to admit, I'm confused. Do you want me to break it down by consonant hits? Because that is what we were talking about before.