Posted from 2 addresses as Jeff Wilson, Jeffery Wilson clueland.com, Jeffery Wilson
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The list software itself puts a footer on the bottom of every post, so there has to be a footer, regardless. The decades-old convention has been to limit sigs to three lines foll…
07 Jan 2011, 20:30
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No, because insisting on top posting as you please on a mailing list is qualitatively like insisting on talking over other people as you please in a common meeting area. The disr…
07 Jan 2011, 20:12
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Why bother to justify your decision to flout the established standards of e-mail behavior to me? I'm not like Serial Mom, hunting down people who wear white after Labor Day. Sin …
07 Jan 2011, 19:57
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*groan* What may well be? As for the Above and Below settings, it doesn't fix the cursor in place, does it? You can begin with the cursor either place and still direct it to the…
07 Jan 2011, 03:04
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I'm doing it in Webmail right now. If Thunderbird is set up properly, it is not difficult and I do it as often as a dozen times a day with minimal effort. This is only true when y…
06 Jan 2011, 22:56
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That sounds more reasonable to me, too; it parallels the acquisition of "hidden" astronomical knowledge by the Dogon people of Mali. After some early contacts, references to bina…
06 Jan 2011, 15:23
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What about the lack of artifacts of the stat-travelers, and the integration of primates into Earth's fossil record? The author intentionally draws our attention to both issues, i…
06 Jan 2011, 14:40
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You dare to mock the First Prime of Abaia?!?! Serpent guards attack!…
06 Jan 2011, 01:19
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It seems like the one could lead to the other, conserving one improbability.…
05 Jan 2011, 07:17
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A naviscaput needn't look any sillier than any other scary ship plying the waves; the key would be to avoid the anthropic elements like giant hands and shoulders and concentrate …
05 Jan 2011, 02:26
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He is pretty angsty over Thecla and then over little Sev, but I see what you mean. You might contrive to use close ups just of his shaded features, implying a look behind the ma…
05 Jan 2011, 02:13
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That could work; the lochage complains he can only see Severian's nose move when he shakes his head while his hood is up; perhaps it includes some folds that might hide the chin.…
04 Jan 2011, 23:31
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...Santa brought me back issues of the SHADOW comic book, as discussed recently. Indeed, Gene Wolfe is credited with Script Supervision and the script is true to the book modulo …
04 Jan 2011, 09:05
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I'm still a little hazy on the Dollo's Law thing. Why is it relevant wrt to abo's shape-shifting within a single generation? If it *is* relevant, why can't the new adaptation wo…
04 Jan 2011, 05:36
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He ought to, the sun and moon have proportions just like the human body does. Which is not to say that artists must be true to human proportions, but they need to be aware of wha…
04 Jan 2011, 02:29
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No reason it can't; the greenery in the Botanic Gardens looks green through its glass as well. There is a lot blue among the green splotches, but that's to be expected in a new …
03 Jan 2011, 06:21
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Not a single glass sphere, lots of domes. The color is accurate; the same sun shines on green Lune, green Gyoll, and the greenery in the Botanical Gardens, even while it looks re…
03 Jan 2011, 04:00
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?? The red sunlight is rather prominent at the lower left. If you mean the grazing reflection from Lune, it's accurate if you agree with my hypothesis that it's glassed over like…
03 Jan 2011, 02:18
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Born Jewish, raised Scientologist, schooled Anglican, currently mentions being Jewish but is otherwise unobservant judging by his blog. Neil used to be part of the Wolfe topic on…
03 Jan 2011, 01:51
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It's the beginning and the end; if it had a center, I'd say it would be the House Absolute, which is also where the capital is, judging by the extern ambassadors being received t…
01 Jan 2011, 12:54
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Since Nessus moves upriver over time, it cannot be said for certain that the roads and the port were part of the city when they were open in the same way they are in Severian's t…
01 Jan 2011, 07:46
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Technically it was everlasting agony from which the only escape was death - though since he was half-immortal, once the mortality was burnt away, he ascended.…
01 Jan 2011, 07:07
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Donald Leroy "Don" LaFontaine (August 26, 1940 — September 1, 2008) Well, there's a copious buttload of obstacles for the protagonist to overcome, it makes for the dying (but not…
01 Jan 2011, 06:49
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I'm down with all of that, it's just that nexus implies that separate, distant things are being brought together and attached, which is belied by the walls, gates, roadblocks, an…
01 Jan 2011, 01:41
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The old Autarch says they closed the roads to paralyze the social order. I assume this means that not being free to travel easily, the bulk of the people are stuck with their lot…
01 Jan 2011, 01:38
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"Nexus" is highly ironic for a walled, largely lawless city in a kingdom with closed roads.…
01 Jan 2011, 00:29
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It's a method of presenting an idea to the reader that is meant to be taken less than completely literally, but should still be considered otherwise why bother to introduce it at…
01 Jan 2011, 00:25
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My reading also supports this, though the gradual ascenscion of the Briah spiral may be very gradual, and not monotonically upward; some cosmic years may lose ground, leaving the…
30 Dec 2010, 17:30
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Not so; they did not have the scientific method, of course, but there are appeals to the authority of the useful arts and natural principles in the central pot devices of Aesclep…
30 Dec 2010, 17:23
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I wasn't thinking of quite *that* far ahead into the not-Ushas future, but... http://www.webscription.net/chapters/0743498747/0743498747___6.htm…
30 Dec 2010, 12:20
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Hercules' and Gilgamesh's stories don't include extended meditations on numerous scientific principles, and they do not appeal to the authority of science to suspend the reader's…
30 Dec 2010, 09:36
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Not even. Erebus and his periscii already operate just fine in the frozen south. They contribute to the cooling of the earth by appropriating the geothermal energy of Urth, and A…
30 Dec 2010, 08:16
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How about a scientist who plays God by performing forbidden experiments in a castle by a lake, or a mechanical workman who has traveled many leagues looking for a way to fall in …
28 Dec 2010, 20:41
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This happens in BotNS, so why not? Sev obviously is a character in his own autobiography, and there are many examples of his character Severian diverging from the narrator Severi…
28 Dec 2010, 19:01
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One reason may be that after Sev associates the visually similar moon with portals to Yesod, and from Yesod. Urth Chapter XV: "Then we were through and seemed suspended in azure …
28 Dec 2010, 08:06
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In Chapter XXIII, I believe it is plain that Alpheta's face is there because she's standing on just the other side of the portal through which Sev and Gunnie have just plunged; w…
28 Dec 2010, 02:54
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URTH XXIII: "Somewhere behind or before us, above us or below us, was a wide circle of light, spinning, frantically spinning, a thing like Lune, if such a thing as a moon of the …
27 Dec 2010, 22:49
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"Of all the names of the Conciliator, the one that is, I believe, least used, and which has always seemed the most puzzling to me, is that of Black Sun." - SWORD, Chapter VIII.…
27 Dec 2010, 22:17
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If you check the archives, there was considerable discusssion of the Whorl's possible sizes and shapes in Jan 2009. Short answer: while it is a hollow body made from an asteroid,…
27 Dec 2010, 04:03
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At least twice, portals to and from Yesod are descibed as moonlike in appearance, both times in proximity to Tzadkiel's ship as it bridges the gap to and from the first moments a…
26 Dec 2010, 20:15
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ISTR the best black hole(s) explanation involved the black beans - possibly supplied by the Yesodis but mis-used by humans in a bid to control by destructive power.…
25 Dec 2010, 11:34
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My reading is monials --> run off --> slept with Ouen --> arrested, presumably for something done *before* she ran, but not positively.…
22 Dec 2010, 17:07
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Hey, this makes Ouen a possible "antipolaric twin" of Sev as well!…
22 Dec 2010, 17:00
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It's still a a struggle for Severian, though...and as it gradually becomes apparent he is being manipulated, and the manipulation crescendos into being part of an entire manipula…
22 Dec 2010, 03:23
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still noodling that - obviously their greater size brings immediate physical advanatge, and makes it much harder for commoners to impersonate exultants. Perhaps there was a sex …
21 Dec 2010, 03:10
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Interesting - I'm not as sure as you seem to be that the Exultants are just Urthlings writ large, but mentioning them in conjunction with Typhon, who mentioned his slaves of larg…
21 Dec 2010, 02:22
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It's not such a stretch to see how a general dystopia is also a dystopia for the working people. "5HC" is even a kind of "fiend confessional", where the narrator describes a worl…
20 Dec 2010, 02:52
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That would possibly be the place that supposedly the Hieros (the human-cognates who are uplifters of Tzadkiel's ancestors) have gone on to, and where the Hierogrammates wish to f…
19 Dec 2010, 20:24
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I believe I must retract the above statement, it is in error. I have re-checked, and I see only galaxy used to mean galaxy by the Yesodis. It's clear that the Yesodis watch over …
19 Dec 2010, 07:33
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I agree with this speculation, except I think the literary vampirism-> new life link is less likely than a disparagement of communion.…
19 Dec 2010, 06:23
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