Does anyone know the coordinate system and terminology used by fighter pilots when communicating the position of an enemy (or friendly) aircraft. The clock terminology (e.g., 3 o'clock for something on your right) is two-dimensional. I'm looking for three-dimensional.
Thanks
Dirk
Not sure about the US, but I bought a nice refurbished laptop with DVD drive at Staples for $250.
I have just discovered the French-English keyboard, and even better, the all French keyboard. $50, including customs and shipping, so I could get the old Microsoft 3000 keyboard that I've used and loved forever. Ordered it from the U.S., which one would think sells the American version of the 3000. I ignored in the ad where it said it's a French-English keyboard, thinking that's a cool add-on: an American keyboard with extra key combinations for French. Uh-uh. Keyboard layout is different. Major keys are no longer in the same place. My favorite thing to despise is that the left shift key is no wider than a regular key. Apparently, the dumbasses who designed the standard thought it would be okay to have half a shift key. Lost count of the number of typing errors I made already. Have since read that this keyboard is the default for many low-priced systems in Canada.
Technically, mine is the French keyboard, but from what I've seen, the French-English keyboard looks worse.
K, what do you use?
After a lot of time wasted endlessly tweaking Apollo's latest chapter, I have officially completed 1/3 of chapter 36. Somewhere in there, I have to squeeze in the impossible resurrection of Apollo in what is supposed to be Joseph's chapter. No way I can do all that in less than two weeks.
Inhale
Holding Out For A Hero
Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.
Chicken breast with ketchup (yum!).
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
One paragraph for all three combined definitely doesn't read right. Two is good if I want to stress the action-reaction. Three is good if I want to stress God's response in causing the jolt. I'm leaning toward two, since the head jolting doesn't show God as the actor, even though he's the one causing the action.
I'll wait for a few more responses here before I decide.
Thank you, both.
I have a few questions about paragraph usage. Here's the first snippet in question:
It warms my heart when you quote Bible stories, God said.
It warms my heart when you don’t, Apollo said.
Apollo’s head jolted.
“Whelp of a lupa!”
The italics is mind speech. Double quotes is normal dialogue. I use new paragraphs whenever there is a new speaker, even if it's mind speech. I'll add that God has the ability to cause muscle spasms and does so in Apollo's neck whenever He's annoyed, causing the head to jolt.
I originally had the last three paragraphs as one, since it's all about Apollo. However, the jolt is also God's "response" to Apollo's mind speech, albeit a non-verbal one. Apollo's response to the head jolt is out loud.
One paragraph or three?
Thanks.
Oh, all the documents are there and on a flash drive and on my work computer. It's just that I couldn't open any to work on. I finally got it reinstalled a little while ago.
Glad you got it. I'm still running Office 2007. My pension doesn't cover upgrades. 
What features in 2010+ have you found useful?
Until you get your Word 365 fixed, you can download free Apache Open Office. The Apache Writer part of it will allow you to save and open Word Documents.
https://www.openoffice.org/product/writer.html
Have you tried testing the compatibility between Open Office and Word? No doubt they say they can produce Word docs, but so does Google Docs. The conversion from Google was so bad (not a single conversion option worked), causing all kinds of formatting errors. I manually copied what I had written in Docs and created styles in the resulting Word doc. Google is way behind on styles, which is the source of most of the conversion problems. I would have bought a Google Chrome laptop some months back, but I'm very dependent on styles, among a few other key features.
Yikes! Thanks for the research/detail, K. I love Grammar Girl. Funny how your two linked articles disagree about job titles placed after the name. :-)
What about the original sentence that triggered my latest migraine:
"The emperor is dead, Governor. From now on, I'm the Holy Roman Emperor." (emperor is lowercase, Holy Roman Emperor is capitalized, even though both refer to the same individual)
Under the rule of one, emperor would be caps until there are two of them (Apollo and Caligula), at which point it's lowercase. Yes? According to my own demented style guide, emperor is lowercase because it's not a formal title (emperor vs Emperor of the Imperium Romanum). However, there is only one Holy Roman Emperor in the future, so it gets caps. Under my style guide, it gets caps because it's the formal title, with no informal equivalent. It just sucks to have both in the same sentence.
I think the planets have aligned, albeit for different reasons. Let me know if you disagree.
Kdot, where did you end up with the "rule of one"? Is there such a thing? (The Great One could fall under the category of a formal title with no informal equivalent, like Holy Roman Emperor.)
Once again, chaper 35 is up on the site, without the last scene that gave away all of the suspense at the end. I have now written three different endings before finally getting it right. Not sure how to incorporate the deleted info into later chapters. Should be fun.
Spell? I don't spell, sir. I swype. Awesome tool.
I can't have an uncertainty here initially. It's either a divine miracle that Apollo survived or he's dead. The third option (faulty estimates from the AI) doesn't crop up as a possibility until later. I need to get the three numbers sufficiently accurate up front that we'll never know whether it was a miracle or a computer error (the AI burns out before anyone can check). There seems to be a wide margin for error here due to differences between individuals, so it shouldn't be too hard to get the numbers within the correct range.
Yeah, it's the optional caps that kills me. If I use capitals for titles after "the", that results in: "The Emperor is dead." (perfectly reasonable) but also "The Governor is dead." (iffi) and "The Toilet Attendant is dead." (from fumes).
I went with my own variation, which has mostly worked - formal vs. informal titles:
Apollo is the emperor. The emperor has arrived.
Apollo is Emperor of the Imperium Romanum. The Emperor of the Imperium Romanum has arrived.
Now what do I with:
Apollo is the holy Roman emperor ???
That just looks wrong in lowercase. I'll probably have to treat it as an exception. Basically there is no informal version of that title.
It sucks though when they both end up in the same sentence:
"The emperor is dead, Governor. Henceforth, I'm the Holy Roman Emperor!"
Now where did we end up with the "rule of one"? Is there such a thing? (The Great One could fall under the category of a formal title with no informal equivalent, like Holy Roman Emperor.)
I managed to pry the back off my cell phone. Does that count?
Since there are two emperors in the battle, then neither emperor has a unique title. There must be more to that rule....
And don't forget Queen Mary, who is the only queen so far in my story, yet her role is identical to that of a mere governor.
Many people around the world capitalize Queen when referring to Elizabeth II, even though there are other queens. I'm betting some American don't capitalize queen, although I've regularly seen President capitalized where I wouldn't.
You begin to see why my capitalization rules keep falling over.
But in all seriousness, the last two numbers, depending if you want to keep this 100% believable or on the edge of believable, will be determined by the human body is my understanding. What I'm not sure about is: have you considered variability? And is there even variability between humans - for example, would a healthy, fit 20yo be able to walk out while a 50yo smoker should've worn a red shirt that day?
There is definitely variability. Following is the wording I used:
“At the present rate of air loss, we’ll pass out in about four minutes, and we’ll be dead in nine. It will take at least eleven minutes to dock with the Decianus and repressurize.”
That wording shows the numbers are estimates. Clearly, though, I'm mostly ignoring the variability.
Have you considered that the environmental systems may have an emergency mode? By carrying far more oxygen than nitrogen, and allowing the partial pressure of nitrogen to drop until it's about equal to the partial pressure of oxygen, you can slow the loss of nitrogen by about two thirds. (Fire becomes a greater danger.)
The AI is damaged. Assuming it's giving correct answers to the three numbers (a HUGE if), that would include automatic emergency procedures, assuming it can initiate them. Exploring those details would detract from the real purpose of the scene.
There is definite pressure loss, since the air (not just oxygen) is leaking out of the ship. I read on Wiki that humans can only survive complete depressurization for about 90 seconds, after which death may be unavoidable.
I have three variables as the air leaks out: time until they become unconscious, time until they die, and time until they can no longer be resuscitated. I'm hoping to keep the three to about ten minutes total. I have complete freedom for the first, which is based on the size of the leak.
I used a seatback to slow the air loss enough to set the three numbers above to 6, 9, and 11 minutes, although I pulled those three figures out of my hat. Since there is potentially significant loss of air until they slow the leak, the first number (time to unconsciousness) can be as short as I want (e.g., 2 minutes), leaving plenty of time for the other two variables.
I don`t want someone using their body to block the opening, since their pain/swelling then becomes the focus of the scene, which makes it unusable.
Finally, I'd like Apollo to be able to walk out unaided, since there are hundreds of his military arrayed on the deck of the flagship, and he doesn't want to be carried out in front of them. He can still show signs of decompression sickness, which can be treated in a hyperbaric chamber after the scene ends.
Given all that, are there any candidate figures for my three variables better than 6, 9, and 11? Perhaps 4, 9, and 11, to allow time for the heart to stop after 5 minutes of unconsciousness (9 - 4)?
Thanks.
