Jane and I celebrate Christmas, and while this has been a rough year for Jane, there is brightness too. We have made new friends and we are getting the house in order.
And a Christmas note on the kitty front: as you know, Jane and I have sis-Lynn’s elderly snowshoe Siamese we have been trying to integrate into our household, with the Bengal and the Scottish Fold, aka Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley (their online pseudonyms)…Tanner is of a fighting disposition, and it has not been easy. But he longs for company. Interspersed with absolute fear of our two. We have tried Feliway, Feliway calming collars, melatonin chews, and yes, hemp oil. We have moved Tanner up from the lonely basement to reside in a round canvas kennel under the Christmas tree, and let him out during the day while our two are asleep in my room. Come evening, out ours come and he goes back into the kennel.
We HAVE made progress—we have gotten Mr. Bingley to sit calmly, even doze on the cat tree about 8 feet from Tanner sitting on the sofa; and we have gotten Mr. Darcy to tolerate him with baleful stares from across the room. We shall not speak of the moment Mr. Bingley popped up on one side of Jane while Tanner was sleeping on the middle console. But there will be set-backs. The real news is, they are not cuddles, but they are beginning to define spaces and rights-of-way, and nobody has bled. Some fur has flown, but nothing serious. We’ve come a long way since April.
So from the felines of the household, Meowwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhissssspityyyyy Christmas!
10
Happy New Year!
BCS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talos
Aha! Thanks, Walt! — Hmm, the article gives this as possibly about the lost-wax production of bronze and steel. “Ichor” as an immortal blood-like substance, rather than some foul monster-blood, such as from various Greek monsters. And two distinct versions of Talos/Talon, including Minoan and Cretan local traditions. – Plus a reference to Phaistos (and Hephaestus as being from Phaistos) and so that ties in with the Phaistos disc and Minoan civilization and pre-Greek or concurrent with the Greeks’ civilizations. Linear A and Linear B and the Phaistos symbols, predating the Greek borrowing o the Phoenician alphabet from Cadmus / Kadmos. (And something about Talos/Talon and Tallai- being cognate to helios, for the sun. — All very curious, reaching back into a blending of early Bronze Age history dimly remembered through oral tradition folktales, and showing it may have been a way to pass on technical knowledge to metalsmith.
That it seems like an early realization that clockwork mechanisms or “engines” could be automata, seemingly alive yet not…. Also really interesting. It’s things like this about the ancient world that show that they could imagine ahead, even if they couldn’t yet build or sustain things. It says they were close to some modern inventions, and just didn’t manage to get there or stay there. And who knows what they did have that they couldn’t maintain or make work, or what they did that was lost.
I keep wondering if it could have been possible for a civilization to develop early, during the Neolithic after the Ice Age, but before most of the rest of the world reached the Bronze Age and later. But it would’ve been precarious without enough people to sustain it, and prone to invaders and holes in their knowledge and to natural disasters, famines, disease. — I wonder if there’s something waiting out there in the archeological record to be found in some area on the planet we haven’t guessed. Surely there would be artifacts left, potshards, something, that showed if any people reached a higher level. (And if so, why didn’t their knowledge and territory advance, get traded or stolen around to lots of people in the area?) But tens of thousands of years a long time. Yet somehow, humans and Neanderthals had tens of thousands of years in the Paleolithic, then the Neolithic for modern humans, and finally the Bronze Age for comparatively short a time. Then a huge leap (once the exponential curve really got going) from the Bronze Age up through Iron and Steel and into the early modern era in the last few hundred years, to where we are now.
I still wonder who and what else is back in that past, since realizing that every culture we know about, with almost no exceptions, all date from the Bronze Age. All modern cultures spring from the Bronze Age, and possibly even some that read as more primitive might be people who lost Bronze Age knowledge. That some might still be around that never had developed it is, hmm, curious and telling.
We live in a time when much of the world is now in that modern high-tech world or near it, and fewer human groups are pre-industrial or pre-Bronze Age level. But how very interesting that we still have that range of earlier levels, who are. increasingly marginalized and being pushed or pulled into the technological era by the prevailing local modern cultures. (Or that modern may be a misnomer or hubris.)
Hah, well, that great high-tech era isn’t quite so perfect and utopian, for sure. Aside from whacked-out leaders and followers — My keyboard has had one too many human keypresses and two too many cats walking all over it, and is losing three keys. Gonna have to see if I can get in this one and clean it out, and meanwhile, the spare will be the new keyboard. Seems like this keyboard has only lasted a year or less. Phooey. Dang cheap planned obsolescence.
I would still like to see us reach Mars in my lifetime.
Greek technology, see Hero(n) of Alexandria and Archimedes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria
Roman tech was more into agronomy and architecture, from my superficial knowledge.
Ancient tech is difficult for archeologists since some materials endure and some don’t. Wood does not often endure, so an unknowable amount of wooden tech has rotted or been eaten by termites. One example I vaguely recall is that moving across Asia, flint was not available in some areas while bamboo was, so the latter was used for arrowheads, by both H. sap. and Neanderthals IIRC.
Pot shards we find. The most intricate basketwork, we don’t.
“Absence of proof is not proof of absence,” but you wouldn’t know it from many archeological pronouncements.
I came across something really interesting, linguistics-wise, by accident. It seems there’s a Samoan island called Savai’i somewhere around New Zealand. An island called Savai’i and a group of islands called Hawai’i, where that W can be a W or V sound, makes me think, without looking it up yet, that the Samoan and Hawai’ian languages are both related Polynesian languages. It doesn’t seem likely it would be sheer coincidence. So I’ll be looking up Samoan to see if that is true. Apparently, the early explorers who were the Polynesian ancestors were really fearless, tenacious seafarers, to have travelled so far throughout the Pacific in catamarans and other boats. It makes me wonder if they had more advanced ships at some point too. But mostly it makes me think, man, these are the kind of folks you might really want as spacefarers and colonists.
I chanced on this because I’d clicked a link to find out where Frankie Adams, the young woman who plays Gunnery Sgt. Bobbie Draper on The Expanse, is a native New Zealander and Samoan, and she’s from the island of Savai’i. It also says she’s 5’11”, which means she is not short, and she’s strongly built, not flimsy. I’m 5’11”, and I don’t often meet women as tall or taller than me. (My high school geometry teacher was an exception; she taught basketball as well as geometry.) Gunny Sgt. Draper looks shorter on the show to me, so it tells me how I’d look compared to the other cast.
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Kitty Story — My cats have been busy for the new year. A couple of nights ago, Smokey tried to drink my iced tea. This is a no-no, of course. I told him so and shooed him away from it and moved the cup. He went back to the saucer where it was, once, then twice, and that got my attention that there was something going on. He went back to it a third time, looking.
That told me he was definitely looking for something, trying to get across a message. So I checked, and their water dish was dry after only a couple of days since I’d last filled it. Unusual, but it’s happened another time recently. The story wasn’t done there. I set that bowl aside to wash, and got them fresh water.
A couple of minutes more, coming back from washing the old bowl, I found Smokey still drinking thirstily. (Drinking his weight in water as a foundling street kitten was the first thing he did when I got him, years ago.)
Sitting right behind him, patiently waiting his turn, was Goober, Mr. Manners, seldom ever assertive, always a gentleman. Heh. I got a huge kick out of this. (And I’ve promised myself to check their water dish daily now.) — So right there, I had a great example of feline communications skills and feline ideas of courtesy. They aren’t always smart, but they are smarter than we give them credit for. Being able to get this across to me so clearly, and then showing manners about it, wow.
Oh, but it doesn’t end quite there. — Earlier today, Goober tried to walk across the keyboard and then tried to park his butt on the keyboard, to get attention, when I’d just sat down again. “Hey, kitty, get your butt off the keyboard, darn it.” They are supposed to know not to do this. They always ignore it anyway. (I pat my paws all over the keyboard, so why shouldn’t they?, I think is the kitty-logic there.) — Goober’s little sit-down punched something more interesting than usual, and Siri promptly announced she was calling Larry for me on FaceTime. (Mac computer, Mac’s video conference call software.)
Ack, no, cancel that, Siri. (I don’t use Siri enough to think to tell the dang interface to cancel the call, haha.) So there I was, scrambling to click Cancel and close Siri and FaceTime. (Hey, I’d just gotten up a few minutes before, and so I was in sweats and my robe and my hair wasn’t combed. I’m a guy, but hey, I do have some standards. Admittedly, maybe not as high standards as they used to be, but still! And I only know one Larry, because he’s a voice actor on one of the fan audio shows I’d done a couple of roles for, a few years ago now. But aside from one table read over group voice call (Skype or Yahoo Groups or Google something-or-other, whichever it was) we’ve never talked or seen each other. I feel sure he would’ve been rather surprised! I sure as heck would have if the call had gone through.
So now my cat is trying to call characters in outer space or here on Earth. Well, it can’t be long before E.T. phones home, or I get a mysteriously large order for cat food and treats. Or I don’t know, kitteh minions. Kitteh, ah, Companions? (I am not too certain if either of my two would prefer a kitteh lady Companion or a kitteh gentleman Companion. But I presume they might.)
Goober did not succeed in activating the transporter to beam us up, nor did he get the stalwart Starfleet officer who Larry plays. Heh. Nor did I get a shuttle ride off this planet.
I think Goober and I need to have a conversation about better use of Siri and the keyboard to achieve better spacefaring results. I guess he needs a comm badge.
Hah, I think I’m going to copy this and send via email to the couple of Trek fan audio dramas I’ve worked on, and a copy to Larry. This is just way too funny not to share, and if they wanted to use it somehow as a plot device or funny comedy relief bit, haha, I think it’d be great fun for fans. (A ship’s cat or a tribble or some ship’s kid or alien critter? Who knows.)
I feel sure the techies at Apple did not contemplate cats calling people via Siri.
At least my cat did not get HAL to open the pod bay doors, nor has Siri called me Captain Honey yet, like the Enterprise computer once did before a service call….
Presented for your edification and amusement. 😀
Yes, all the Polynesian languages are related, from Māori to Hawai’ian, to California and Easter Island. It seems likely they touched S. America, too, but perhaps were more culturally resisted by the Incans than the Californian tribe(s?) they contacted. It may be they were so culturally attuned to life on islands that they shied away from mainland settlement, where an enemy could come over the hills–or maybe they just ran into Xipe Tótec’s followers.
The Polynesian languages have similar syllables to Japanese. (I’m very ignorant of all Chinese and SE Asian languages.) It doesn’t seem unlikely that some common basis or common later-applied structure rules are involved. (From what I know of Japanese, someone worked to simplify the language, and probably someone else to complexify expression of numbers of things.)
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I suspect any voice-activated device errors toward you buying a product or service.
While Google’s voice response is very good, it more seems a wedge to get users to drop privacy rights; and of course, buy stuff.
My phone is rarely more than a few meters away. Why have buttons and TVs and other devices for speech recognition? Seems like a prescription for confusion. Two devices listening to one command?
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Relating the two, keyboards would have half as many keys for a Polynesian language, making them far more convenient. I occasionally see a scene of someone typing quickly on a smartphone keyboard; I suspect it’s nonsense typing or been fast-forwarded since who wants to watch someone typing?
A US (court) stenographer’s keyboard has only 23(?) keys, typing syllables like a pianist playing chords.
OTOH, I can voice-“type” without allowing Google free run of my data, so that’s a good option when I need to enter something complex.
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I haven’t included links, but if you can’t find something in Wikipedia, Google will find it. (I have my default highlight-and-search set to Wikipedia, so I can just highlight, right-click, and pick Search Wikipedia. Perhaps your browser can do something similar? OTOH, Google will usually have Wikipedia in the top results.)
Hawaiians are generally thought to have come from Tahiti.
p.s. I see occasional PSA’s that if one’s cat is extra thirsty it could be serious, and get it to a vet.
True: it can signal diabetes, for one thing.
Two-leggers too unfortunately! Just found out my H1AC has become distressingly high.
I’ve been thinking about a couple of unimportant things:
If the top of italic print leans toward the right, (does it?), then when the tops of the letters lean the other way is it anitalic?
Sophisticated and wizened actually mean the same thing, though they cannot presently be substituted for one another.
CJ, Paul, and Walt — Thank you. I think he’s doing OK, but I need to find a new local vet for a checkup and to renew shots for them anyway. My prior vet retired, darn it. So far, no problems noted from keeping a second water bowl in the kitchen. Crossed digits.
Italic and Anitalic. Heheheh. (And yes, italics lean toward the right. Some designers experiment with different angles, with 15 degrees about the usual.
When I was considering a fun special effect for a science fiction font still in development, I expected to find options for left-slanting italics, such as left-handed folks usually produce. But no, there’s no predefined way to specify them as such, and no naming convention. The idea seems to be that no one would do such a thing, or that they’d use those instead of the usual right-slant italics, or else a left-slant roman and right-slant italic (or vice-versa). But no way to do this with an accepted naming convention or recognition within the way fonts are encoded for weight and roman-versus-italic or width (condensed to extended). — So I would’ve had to create a parallel set of fonts without an easy way for designers or typical users to use these the way they’d want, easily. — I decided the easiest way to get what I’d want would be to duplicate the vertical roman in a left set and right set, and consider it a discount, because no one in their right mind (me included) would consider it otherwise.
And it irritated me, design-wise, or for left-handed folks. There is no logical, rational _reason_ not to have left-slanting italics. It’s only a convention based on the majority being right-handed and therefore slanting their letters that way. — Yet people of either handedness can write in a left, vertical, or right slanting direction, and it’s a very useful thing. (And for languages like Hebrew and Arabic, where the writing direction is right-to-left, also Japanese, it probably makes better sense to offer left-slanting italics. (Italics are not part of those traditions, but were added very recently, mostly due to software slanting.)
And…computer programs are odd on whether they allow software slanted (oblique) italics from vertical (roman) fonts. If a font-family doesn’t have a pre-built italic, some programs will slant the roman / vertical fonts automatically. Cool enough; it usually doesn’t look _too_ bad, though a drawn italic looks better. Drawing programs like Illustrator and Inkscape and the obsolete Freehand (which I miss) require the user to slant as an effect. The Office suite clones like NeoOffice, LibreOffice, and OpenOffice differ by operating system in whether they will allow that automatic faux slanting. NeoOffice on the Mac, and the other two, do not do this, so if a font has no italics, you’re stuck with the roman version, which is a problem for body text and for some otherwise wonderful fonts.
I don’t get why left-handed people are treated like that. I never have. It’s just silly. Lots of people are lefties. (I’m right-handed.) The figure is supposed to be around 10% to 12.5%, from the only sources I’d seen, which means 1 in 10 or 1 in 8, which is a lot of people.
So — Hahah, I am in favor of left-slanting italics if people want them, and as a cool, catchy effect, and I’m definitely in favor of left-handed people just as much as right-handed people. (I have extended family and former friends who are lefties.)
There are less than two days until Alliance Rising 1 is out! Amazon says my ebook will be delivered promptly at midnight on Jan. 8th. They say my pre-order of the hardbound book is also due on the 8th, and rain is predicted here for Tuesday, so I will be listening closely for the door. (The postman or delivery guys tiptoe, drop, and run, I swear.)
I expect to curl up with the new book and do a marathon binge read. Ooh, yeah.
Other folks may want to check their orders. I know some people have said their copies are delayed, both within the USA and Canada, and internationally.
I checked: It is still possible to get used copies of pb or hb Finity’s End and Tripoint and Heavy Time and Hellburner and Merchanter’s Luck, but these are getting fewer and higher priced. It would be wonderful to see Finity’s End in ebook format. It would be wonderful if the publisher(s) would reissue new printings of these backlist books. Downbelow Station is still, thankfully available in recent printings and in ebook. Some but not all of these are available as audiobooks.
I had about a minute of a “waking dream” tonight, still in the dream state between sleeping and waking, in which I was convinced, for a minute, that I was in the real, waking world and yet I couldn’t move and I was somewhere I’d never been, furnishings I didn’t know, and this was somehow registering as “home.” I’d been dreaming of home before that, except it was mostly in my parents’ home, where we lived from when I was a junior in high school until after their deaths, instead of my home after that, which only partly felt like home.
I have had at least one other “waking dream” period, back when I was home from college, during that first go-round. And I think one other time besides. I had, back then, a period where, for weeks, I had some conscious awareness I was dreaming, and could do sort of directed dreaming. That’s another very unusual state, kind of neat.
This time, though, was an intense feeling, and for that minute, I thought it was real. I’m not sure how to describe that. It turns out I couldn’t move because (1) that twilight in-between state, and (2) Goober was sleeping on my leg, haha, so I couldn’t move it. I submerged back down into sleep for a few seconds, then woke again fully.
The room I was in was sparsely furnished, some sort of black and white granite or marble floor tile, other furnishings. (Oddly, that’s not what I’d choose, personally; I like color more.) But it registered as home in that in-between state. Probably good I couldn’t move, as I likely would’ve tried to. An intensely real feeling. — I don’t know if things like this are invented by our minds, or some alternate dimension with different rules, or precognition or awareness of the past. (I have had one dreaming experience I can’t ever explain rationally, logically, except that I learned later, shocked, it was all too close to what had happened, hundreds of miles away, to a friend I had not seen in years.) — So I don’t know quite what to make of the “dream-time” world. — This is the first time in years that I’ve had any such awareness again. Maybe that ability will be back for a while. After my mom died, I somehow pushed away even the ability to remember my dreams most of the time, and only in the past few years has that come back somewhat. — So maybe things are improving in my awareness of the dream state. I thought it was really great to have some directed awareness during dreams, either for fun or to try to work out things. So I’d be happy if I could once again remember my dreams and have a return of such awareness.
That “waking dream” in-between state is really freaky and yet really amazing. I would like to be able to do that sometimes. (Back in college, it manifested as the dream-state in ghostly images superimposed on seeing my real bedroom around me. Very strange to experience, yet very cool. Er, and no, I don’t do drugs, so whatever psychoactive stuff happens is only natural stuff going on.
So…I’m very surprised and that puzzling, surreal minute tonight was quite something. Wishing you all a great day. We could all use something better.
Hi there, I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and also I’m just checking to make sure the comment system is working right!
Thanks, Chuck!
Yay! I can login again now.