It explains SO much.
1,326 2016-09-23 03:53:09
Re: Roll call (Originally Role Call) (42 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
1,327 2016-09-23 02:26:35
Re: Roll call (Originally Role Call) (42 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Don't you mean 'roll call'?
1,328 2016-09-22 02:38:48
Re: Ran across this today (7 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
I'm not sure that 'run' is the right word. 'Creep' maybe?
1,329 2016-09-22 01:47:45
Re: meaning for 'strongest start'? (42 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Charles_F_Bell wrote:
I say that SS should include indications of impending conflict (the trigger, the reason for making a critical choice), scene-setting (stasis), and finally the "surprise" - and the reader is off in journey to the resolution through the rest of the book.
What I find failing in many TNBW novels is a timely (if any) presentation of the stasis for the ensuing story -- all the bits of information a reader can set his mind to the context of what is and will happen. In fact, there are those who ridicule the notion as mere a "info dump." There is a right way and a wrong way to "info dump" a stasis, but it is always wrong to ignore the task in SS.
In many of these 'starts' the reader is presented with the character and jeopardy first, sometimes in a setting that will be absurd if not quickly explained. In the extreme cases, I find it unsettling and unsatisfying, almost like the book cover that says, "Buy this book or I will shoot this dog."
So I think I agree with this thesis in principle. In practice, our language is expressed in a linear sequence of words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc., and it is necessary to put one thing before the other.
1,330 2016-09-22 01:39:43
Re: meaning for 'strongest start'? (42 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
That's not entirely new. It continues from the terser, tighter style that came between the World Wars. It will be interesting to see how much it can reverse in the 'long tail' created by ebooks and Print on Demand. Take a look at some of the stuff by the Mad Genius Club authors.
1,331 2016-09-22 01:32:02
Re: The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B. (1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Interesting. When I read off digits, I round the tones on the first and last in the sequence, but otherwise hold them as flat as I can. And yes, that is otherwise unnatural in Engish, because we accent words by voiced stress rather than by length (which I am given to understand is the way that Russian places accents).
A fellow I know wrote an early voice-response system. (NOT for cold-calling!) He recorded each digit four times: Beginning of sequence, middle of sequence, end of sequence, and standalone.
1,332 2016-09-22 01:27:00
Re: Ran across this today (7 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Oh, yeah!
1,333 2016-09-21 18:53:38
Re: meaning for 'strongest start'? (42 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Nice summary.
1,334 2016-09-20 09:32:48
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Edits made to A Lesson With Kirsey; thank you Seabrass. Working on edits for The Garden of End and Beginning.
1,335 2016-09-20 06:07:25
Re: General Comments Section (281 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)
Just noticed the praise. That's more the reviewer I am trying to be than the one I am!
1,336 2016-09-20 04:21:22
Re: The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B. (1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Wordplay on Janitor?
1,337 2016-09-20 02:13:16
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
For the fans, the 'completed' battery powered supply:
Front
Back
I'm looking for a way to put a voltmeter and ammeter on this. Because there's not a lot of spare power, a fancy LED display or LED-lit display is a bad choice, so mechanical meters are the way to go. But they're big, and pose a mounting challenge. Also the ammeter would (will?) have to be cut into the circuit above both the output and current bootstrap transistors. Quite doable, but I have another project for the moment. I spent a couple of hours looking for the high-speed diodes I thought I'd used on the previous breadboards, but it turns out that I used the same schottkys that I'd used in other places. Grumble.
I also have to continue putting parts in their proper boxes.
1,338 2016-09-19 08:04:49
Topic: Class Action against Harlequin (1 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
1,339 2016-09-19 01:07:34
Re: NorthernSkies or NS - Janet (213 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
Give that bat shit some lithium.
1,340 2016-09-19 00:35:41
Re: Ha! The monsters are real! (14 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
The branch of math is called Combinatorics. I can't imagine a mathematician looking at the thing without wanting to do the calculation. Heck, I'm tempted to see if I can duplicate it. It's all a question of the parity rules and the symmetries you have to divide by. Just doing the center rotations would be fun. The rotations applied to the various faces must sum to zero; you can account for that by making one of the six center faces dependent upon the others. So four positions to the fifth power, or 2^10: 1024. Just multiply that in above.
Hmm. That's a 20 digit number. Euler was said to be able to multiple sixteen digit numbers in his head (and get the right result, too!) so maybe four digits by 20 would have been in his reach.
1,341 2016-09-18 23:07:14
Re: Say the first word that comes to mind... (1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
(I knew that would be the next entry.)
1,342 2016-09-18 23:06:03
Re: Ha! The monsters are real! (14 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
The original mass market packaging for Rubik's Cube bragged '3 Billion Combinations'. Few people would have believed the actual number ( {8! \times 3^7 \times (12!/2) \times 2^{11}} = 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ; not considering rotations of the four centers. )
1,343 2016-09-18 22:58:26
Re: State of Vengeance Request (13 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)
Chapter 45 reviewed. I hope there's something new in there.
1,344 2016-09-18 21:30:38
Re: State of Vengeance Request (13 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)
Chapter 44 reviewed.
1,345 2016-09-18 21:29:26
Re: Say the first word that comes to mind... (1,634 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Valley of the Shmoos
1,346 2016-09-18 20:21:09
Re: Ha! The monsters are real! (14 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
Quote's good. Poem's better, though it is hard going in a few places.
Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man.
1,347 2016-09-18 18:46:23
Re: State of Vengeance Request (13 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)
Chapters 41-43 reviewed.
1,348 2016-09-18 17:16:43
Re: Ha! The monsters are real! (14 replies, posted in TheNextBigWriter Premium)
One of my new favorite lines comes from The Ballad of the White Horse: "For the end of the world was long ago ..." An amazing work, a little uneven like all of Chesterton, but real life is uneven too.
For the end of the world was long ago,
And all we dwell to-day
As children of some second birth,
Like a strange people left on earth
After a judgment day.
1,349 2016-09-18 03:37:33
Re: The Sorcerer's Progress (1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)
It's just a place to park a far future chapter.
1,350 2016-09-17 21:09:11
Re: Please post here regarding a completed review (671 replies, posted in Alpha to Omega - Review Group)
Ch 40, State of Vengeance (early this AM).
