{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/16",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 16,
    "subject": "Digest urth.v001.n005",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-04-19T18:00:12+00:00",
    "last": "1997-04-19T18:00:12+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0001-0021@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Matthew Freestone",
        "address": "matthew at matthewf.demon.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1997-04-19T18:00:12+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest urth.v001.n005",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hi to Everyone,\nI've been following Whorl for quite some time, and Urth since it was set\nup, but I haven't posted before - mainly for want of time to check my\nviews against the text. \nI had a couple of thoughts on things people said in the last mailing\ntho'...\n\n(from Raster)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Does Severian suffer from spatial dyslexia?  He seems to\nhave trouble distinguishing left from right, and prefers to refer to\norientations in other ways, \"good-leg\" / \"bad-leg\" for example. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I'd never noticed this, but it immediately made me think of the way you\nwould see three dimensional things if you were looking at them from a\nhigher than 3D viewpoint. Our left and right would be interchangeable.\n(If you find that confusing, consider that, if you're restricted to a\nplane then 'd' and 'b' are left-right opposites, but if you are allowed\nto pick them up in 3D, then one can just be rotated onto the other).\nOTOH, and I only just thought of this, perhaps Severian's memory makes\nit hard for him to conceive of general categories like 'left' and\n'right', and he has to think in terms of concrete objects (Peter Wright\nmakes this point in his 'God Games' essay in Foundation 66).\n\n(from Mantis)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "(I think Gene Wolfe once mentioned that they <aquastors> were like\ntulpas--see short story \"Melting\"--which makes perfect sense.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This thought had also occurred to me independently, fwiw.\n\n(from Mantis)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "(Did you catch this a few months ago as a new science factoid: I'm\nfuzzy on the details, but it seemed to be just that--a solid-o-gram\nprojector that spits individual atoms into place, not only negating the\nneed for mist/smoke that a hologram needs to be cast upon, but also\nmaking an ersatz shell 3-D form.  I must be garbling an awful lot but\nI'm not making it out of . . . water . . . )"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've heard of two devices that would each do a part of what you are\ntalking about - there's the type of electron microscope that can be used\nto move individual atoms around in order to (say) spell out IBM in tiny\nletters - not very useful for making things yet, unless you have a few\nmillion years to spare.\nThere are also solid modelling tools that (as I understand it) allow you\nto fire a laser through a vat of liquid to solidify it in very precise\nways. This lets you build the 3D shells you were talking about, but I\ndoubt it's accurate to single atom level.\n\nI hope to get around to posting about some more (non-New Sun related)\ntopics - especially 'Castleview', and some of the long short stories,\nsuch as 'Seven American Nights'.\n\nMatt\n(guess I'll have to think of a nickname now)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}