If I have to, I'll choose "Don't care". I've read some really marvelous SF novels that had glaring "plot holes" as you call them, and that didn't detract one whit from the story itself. And, yes, I know what a plot hole is. I've written a few myself.
But, we are far afield of the original question.
~Tom
Archeologists of the future will be digging those little cans of squirty goo up and going nuts trying to figure out just what it does.
I have no idea.
~Tom
Tom Oldman wrote:But aren't you applying the science of NOW to the far future, Dirk? Perhaps by 4017 some new processes would be fairly simple. You have a 'black box' the size of, say, an 18-wheeler with an input chute. You drop the air car into it and the box hums, slurps, crunches, lets off condensation in the form of simple steam, a buzzer sounds and several bins along the side of the box receive ingots of whatever metals are in an air car. You don't have to explain it, it just is.
Call it the Stanislawsky Car Rendering Asunder Process (SCRAP).
~Tom
There is a point in a story when Sci-fi may become magic should the author let it. If one adopts the attitude that anything is possible (given enough time) then science becomes magic, or the stalking grounds of the Gods. I ridicule this attitude in my book Remembrances and Reconciliation when in the year 12484 C.E., 0110101011 01110100 Jones discovers the link between collisional quenching of excited-state bismuth atoms by various gases and the meaning of love. I feel (in that superior way of mine) I can ridicule that attitude because I feel I know enough to believe that although the universe is causal, it is not deterministic. Instantaneous travel across great distances by means of quantum entanglement is the latest sci-fi magic. Such a thing is possible in conception, but applied to biologic systems, I know with certainty just below absolute that what we speculate now will not be the result. We, in our 20th-century materialistic determinism, that is a false philosophy, are wrong.
Huh?
But aren't you applying the science of NOW to the far future, Dirk? Perhaps by 4017 some new processes would be fairly simple. You have a 'black box' the size of, say, an 18-wheeler with an input chute. You drop the air car into it and the box hums, slurps, crunches, lets off condensation in the form of simple steam, a buzzer sounds and several bins along the side of the box receive ingots of whatever metals are in an air car. You don't have to explain it, it just is.
Call it the Stanislawsky Car Rendering Asunder Process (SCRAP).
~Tom
Sol:
I can foresee a problem with a freewheeling 'group' creation ----> our current limit on the amount of groups we can join. At the moment, I think it is 10. What if you dropped using the group's picture on our home page and just created a simple list of groups as a link to that group. Since joined it, we'd already know what they did so the name wouldn't throw us. That would give quite a bit more room on our home page - increasing the real estate to add joining more than 10 groups.
~Tom
I didn't know there was another one either. I'll stick with this one.
~Tom
That would be a very good thing, Dags, but I get TCM from a satellite (DirecTV). When I go to that URL and select a movie, the Flash window opens and the 'wait' just spins forever. TCM Help can't tell me why that happens. Dead loss here.
~Tom
For whose of you who might be interested, and can get Turner Classic movies (TCM), the movie "Now Voyager" is on at 8PM (Eastern time).
~Tom
I use either Pale Moon (v25.3.0), or the latest Firefox. Does the same thing on both browsers. Won't do it on Booksie, however.
~Tom
Sol:
Strange things are definitely afoot here. If I am at any other site, or doing anything else on my computer, my keyboard is just fine. But, on this site, there are periods of time that some keys (they seem to occur at random) will fail. I hit them, but nothing shows up. Just doing this post, the "v', "c", Enter, and "e'" keys failed on me. If I highlight the text I've already done and copy it. I can refresh the page, paste back, and all the keys are back working just fine. Sooner or later, another few keys begin to fail.
Is the site editor at fault? Are you filtering for special keys or something?
~Tom
Wow. That's the kind of review every writer hopes for.Congratulations, Bonnie!
~Tom
When I do that, the wife gets on my case. But, I have done it. What happens is that the spaces between the letters seem to get smaller and make words harder to separate. Here on this web site, I have to zoom in quite a ways to read all the tiny fonts, this forum included. Doing that, in itself, isn't too bad, except it reformats the text to some extent.
My lousy eyesight is limited to a distance of about 24 inches. I can pass my driver's license exam without my glasses. The 'far vision' section on my trifocals is plain glass.
~Tom
I can see clearly why this is. Publishers don't want to waste any whitespace if they can help it. Reducing the space between two sentences is one way of doing that. On a largish novel, the savings in pages could be quite a bit.
In my case, I went back to one of my novels I put into PDF format, reduced a working copy by eliminating two spaces after every paragraph, and redid a new PDF. The number of pages went from 441 pages to 422. Moneywise, that's quite a savings in paper if nothing else.
On the other hand, I've read a couple of novels on my wife's Kindle and have found that jamming sentences together on that tiny (for me) screen, really makes thing difficult to read. I wear trifocals, and my vision break point is about 12-14 inches away for reading. That means that the clearer the typeface/spacing is, the better for me.
If this is to become, or has in fact become, the new standard, then I'll have to go along with it - but I won't like it.
~Tom
Yeah, I don't understand the change to one space after a period instead of two. Where did that come from? Lol
Me neither. I've always used two, but on another site I got dinged for it. Now I'm conflicted as to which to use. Maybe and and a half?
~Tom
I just did a regular review of a chapter. When I clicked the 'Post Review' button, I waited, and waited, and waited, while my browser said "waiting for thenextbigwriter.com". Suddenly the screen cleared and I got an error' message of "An error occurred - Application Error". The chapter was for 0.49 points, but when I went back to re-do the review, I was told that I wouldn't get any points because I'd already reviewed the chapter.
I didn't get the points, either.
~Tom
That really sounds like a very intense series of reading/reviewing/re-reading/re-reviewing to infinity and beyond. I have quite a few other authors (not of this group) that I review also, add to that writing and editing my own works and getting them posted (for another review/edit/repost cycle).
That seems like a long session at the computer almost every day just to keep all the plates balanced on the sticks. If the wife and I go out to do a bit of shopping, or take a weekend trip somewhere, then the whole schedule is shot up. Neither of us take our computers with us on trips. Period. So that would put me quite a bit behind in my duties to the group.
Are there any provisions for things like that?
~Tom
Dags:
That's very true, but I've left around 7 or 8 quickees for blank bios and, so far, only two persons responded. Not a very good return on investment.
When I first arrived here, my bio was blank. After two quickees, I filled it in a little - and responded with a connection request. If they, like you, are private, or unsure of what to put down, then a simple "I'll get to this after I feel my way around." should suffice.
If not mandatory, then a pop-up asking if leaving the bio blank is OK might work.
~Tom
To add to your request, Max, how about making it mandatory to write something in the Bio box - even if it is just "Let me get used to the site before I tell all". When I go to the 'New Members' pics and click on them, I like to see right away something other than just "This person has not...."
~Tom
Thank you, Karen, for your support. I've begun work, but at the moment it is just an outline. Over the next week or so, I'll flesh it out. I have to verify a few things so that I won't betray confidences and/or procedural secrets, but I do hope it will be as interesting as you hope. I can only try.
~Tom
My bio page says a lot about me; all the broad strokes of who I am and were I'm coming from, but within this group I intend to expand on by experiences with Man Above. If anything, they may be a little unusual to some. I had my first walk with Him in 1970 while home on leave one summer. I had just finished my fourth Vietnam tour and was pretty burned out. When I accepted my brother's invitation to meet a few of his friends at a small encampment in the Colorado Rockies, I had no idea how fulfilling it would be.
The group consisted mostly of Lakota's who were gathering to initiate several members with the rites of passage. They were practicing Shamanists. I listened to their tales of wonder, participated in several preliminary rites, and began to recover from my brushes with war. That started my journey into the light.
I am rough around the edges, as only military upbringing can make you. But by the same token, my boundaries have been world-wide. My father was in the Air Force, and I enlisted in the Navy when I was 20 in 1962. Except for my marriage 52 years ago, I have rarely been inside a church. However, I have returned to those same Rockies many times to renew and rejuvenate myself. I've completed two vision quests, with attendant fasts and sweat lodges. Surrounding myself with the the beauties of nature is all the church I need.
Before too long, I plan on posting a three-part story of my happy journey into the light provided by Man Above.
~Tom
Agree. I am forever forgetting to check the box for my created threads, and then wonder why I am not being notified.
~Tom
Yeah, I guess I did. I just thought that maybe the right-hand drop-down menu might include 'mark unread' along with 'view message' and 'delete'. It could come in handy at times.
~Tom
Has anyone figured out how to mark a PM as 'unread'? I started to answer a PM but was interrupted. Now the message is marked as 'read', but I haven't answered it. With my memory, I know I'll forget to answer it.
Or is this a good candidate for the Wishlist thread?
~Tom
I add my thanks also, Sol. Wonderful work. I can let my offline list languish now.
~Tom
Oh, I don't mind online payments at all. The ones that bug me are sites that want a credit card number and then just whack your account when they feel like it. I want to be the one that pays them, not them taking payment when they want to. Sounds like this site will work just fine for me. I'm just not sure when my current 'enlistment' runs out.
~Tom
