Path of Air

David Stockhoff · 20 Aug 2010, 00:09 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

This is the message as the crawl holds it, before anything here touched it. What the conversation shows has been through ingest: transfer encodings decoded, attachments dropped, quote markers repaired, and the archiver’s ? resolved into quotation marks and dashes. Those repairs are judgements and some of them are wrong, which is what this page is for. Email addresses are obscured here as they are everywhere else on the site, so it is before our repairs rather than byte for byte.

From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:09:46 -0400
Subject: (urth) Path of Air
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikO9Lzz-VkhwmyqJ4F1Wcvx+w6TrTyNijNpnhoj at mail.gmail.com>
References: <SNT123-W389CFBE3DA9A541A8D5A2CF9D0 at phx.gbl>	<4C6BE1D1.1060000 at gmail.com>
	<4C6C7392.3080909 at verizon.net>	<AANLkTikk-Y4Hw==NnanL1XszKRcRWwTu-iAX=nqHdrhh at mail.gmail.com>	<4C6C8F24.1090909 at verizon.net>
	<AANLkTikO9Lzz-VkhwmyqJ4F1Wcvx+w6TrTyNijNpnhoj at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4C6DC7CA.1040607 at verizon.net>

Antonio

As I said quite clearly, those were the "obvious" answers. Not the 
"only" answers. Generally, in these matters, the interesting answers 
must contend with and overcome the obvious ones, or else join with them, 
or else go away. Therefore, the obvious answers must be known.

If you find the obvious answers to be uninteresting, but you can't come 
up with more interesting ones (you still haven't), then this suggests 
that the questions themselves aren't that interesting. That is, they 
don't lead anywhere. You need better questions.

Whether you want to hear that or not is a different matter.

Ant?nio Marques wrote:
> On 19 August 2010 02:55, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net 
> <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
>     This is a discussion list. If you are unable to provide better
>     answers than the "obvious" ones,
>
>
> *You* are the one who could only provide those 'answers'. Which are 
> only 'obvious' because they don't answer anything.
> I'm more interested in asking questions. If you have no answer for 
> them, no one's going to think the worse of you, so no need to write 
> non-answers. I wasn't even talking to you specifically (even if I were 
> you'd be under no obligation to answer, of course).
>  
>
>     why do you complain about them?
>
>
> Because they answer nothing, since they are not answers but merely 
> flippant "because it is so" remarks, and hence worthless and out of 
> place in a *discussion*?
>  
>
>     Perhaps it's actually the endless bickering that is a problem for
>     some. I don't know. I'm not going to address it further.
>
>
> You'd have done a much better job if you hadn't written those two 
> replies. What did they gain anyone?
>
>     Ant?nio Marques wrote:
>
>         This kind of answers is precisely why people lose interest in
>         following the list.
>
>         On 19 August 2010 00:58, David Stockhoff
>         <dstockhoff at verizon.net <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>
>         <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net
>         <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>>> wrote:
>
>            Some obvious answers present themselves:
>
>
>            Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:
>
>                Lee Berman wrote (18-08-2010 12:58):
>
>                    I think Valeria remains a possible candidate as
>         Severian's
>                    missing twin
>                    sister. The wife of Roman emperor valentinianus was
>         named
>                    Valeria
>                    Severa.
>
>
>                This I think is worth exploring.
>
>                - When Severian goes to Yesod, Valeria remains in his place
>                for decades. Why would this be tolerated? We're told of no
>                similar thing in the history of the Autarchy.
>
>            ---Because it's not important.
>
>
>                - What's Severian's attraction to Valeria? He met her when
>                both were reasonably young. Then years pass and
>         suddenly upon
>                becoming Autarch he realises he must go get her. Why?
>
>            ---Because he could.
>
>
>                - I don't know what to make of the names. The -ian in
>                Severian's name was sometimes used in Rome to indicate
>                adoption. Otoh Valeria would simply be the name of a woman
>                born to perhaps the most noble family in roman history,
>         while
>                at the same time one that generally stood for the rights of
>                lower strata of society. So, the names seem to fit, but do
>                they tell us anything new?
>
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Urth Mailing List
> To post, write urth at urth.net
> Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net
>   
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> ---
> avast! Antivirus: Inbound message clean.
> Virus Database (VPS): 100818-1, 08/18/2010
> Tested on: 8/18/2010 11:10:07 PM
> avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2010 ALWIL Software.
> http://www.avast.com
>
>
>
>
>

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net