{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/340",
    "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": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 340,
    "subject": "Digest whorl.v005.n029",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-06-11T23:55:00+00:00",
    "last": "1997-06-11T23:55:00+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0006-0344@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice K. Turner",
        "address": "al at interport.net"
      },
      "date": "1997-06-11T23:55:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v005.n029",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "\"Craning his neck to look behind him, he saw a thin crescent of\nblinding light at the utmost reach of the plain.  At that moment\nit seemed to him that the Outsideer had grasped the entire whorl\nas a man might grasp a stick--grasped it in a hand immensly greater,\nof which no more than the tip of the nail on a single finger had\nappeared.\"\n\nPlease grasp a cylinder--a pencil will do, or a soupcan.  No\nthrusting,\njust rotate it along its axis so that the crescents of your\nfingernails\nslowly appear over the top.  Or, more accurately: look at the can,\nthen grasp it so that just your fingernails appear (i.e., no\nrotation--just grasping).  That is how I interpret the passage."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, how interesting. My own interpretation, from the first time I\nlooked at the passage, is much simpler. I assumed that he saw the sun\nbeginning to rise from the rounded horizon form of the hollowed asteroid\nthat is the Whorl. For that's exactly how the sun looks, especially on a\nsomewhat smoggy day, from a plain or the sea, like a gold-red sliver of\na giant fingernail tip here on Earth.\n\nAs for Chenille-Kypris's knife-throwing abilities, I think we could\neasily assume that any supernatural being would have supernatural powers\nof accuracy and strength, and rhythm too. To quibble about whether these\nfit the image of the god's regional attributes is (a) silly when you're\ntalking about computerized god programs (someone has pointed this out);\n(b) not consistent to what we know about ancient gods---look at mighty\nHera, supposedly a domestic goddess, or at fearsome Inanna, sometimes a\nlove-goddess; (c) face it, morts, a bit sexist. (Not that I think you're\na sexist group---I don't, you're not.)\n\n-alga-"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}