Number 71 - August/September 2012
For Point of Divergence #71
Now I've seen eclipses before (always partial, though), so while cool, it has been done. The transit was my first (and probably last), though (don't ask me how I missed it eight years ago, unless it was visible nowhere near L.A.). Now I've seen Venus before, obviously, both as a bright light in the sky and as a disc (or more usually, crescent) though telescopes. Seeing a whole 'nother planet at a tiny black dot against the Sun, well, somehow it's just different. You get a better sense that it's out there, in the distance.
I'm glad I saw it.
Meanwhile, we've discovered that, yes, there still are some Drive-In Theaters left in Southern California – two are, in fact, within thirty miles of us. So, being children of the 50s/60s, we had to check them out. I personally haven't been to a drive-in since, well, I believe it was to see Herbie Rides Again...
The nearest is the “Vineland,” actually not too far from where I work. We went to it to see the double-feature (yeah, anyone remember those...) of Avengers and John Carter,1 and had a reasonably nice time except, well...
...from what I can tell, the Vineland still only shows movies because they haven't figured out how to have the flea market go on after dark. Maintenance is...light. The screens are...dark. The sound quality from the FM transmitter is static-y as all get out. And the snack bar! Well, I got some popcorn there, but I've always been a risk-taker...
Throw in the fact that the Metrolink goes right by the place several times during the movie and that street lights shine in your eyes from several directions and I suspect that, sans getting their act together, yet another drive-in will soon bite the dust.
The second, farther away, was the “Mission Tiki” and that was a whole different kettle of fish. For one thing, they keep it up. Trees block street lights from your eyes. The movie on the screen is visible, even right after sunset. The place has been repaved and the parking lines drawn in.2
The screen was brighter, the sound coming from our radio was actually good, and even the audience seemed, well, nicer.
And the snack bar! When was the last time you went to the movies and were able to find affordable food? And it's tasty too.
There we saw Pirates! (disappointing, actually, for an Aardman film) and Think Like A Man. And, all in all, it was a much more enjoyable experience and a lot closer to what I can remember as a kid, way back when...
What has TV taught us recently?
- It has taught us it always rains right before, during, or after a murder – unless it snows instead. Thanks to this effect, Las Vegas has over fifty inches of rain a year – which explains the lush green Vegas suburbs.
- It has taught us that most of the East Coast is covered in chaparral, while the area from Santa Barbara to San Francisco on the West Coast is a dense temperate rain forest.
- Florida is actually quite mountainous...which goes well with the chaparral.
- The Hamptons on Long Island is the disease “Hot Zone” for the entire planet. More exotic diseases affect this area of the world than anywhere else, including ones that only affect a single person a year: That single person will be in the Hamptons.
- The only job on the planet more dangerous than being a CSI, is being the Significant Other of a CSI. They have an almost 90% mortality rate within the first two years.
- Burbank is the center of the International Espionage universe.
- There is no substance on Earth that will not explode if hit correctly during a car chase...
“He's got an iron will, nerves of steel, and several other metal-themed attributes...”
Divergent Opinions - Comments on P.O.D. 70
Me
re: An Alternate History Publishing Venture?:
A recent article on io9 suggested that the low priced “Kindle Bestsellers” are the new “pulp” format.
So, what's going to be the next Shadow or Doc Savage?
re: Santa Barbara Map: The original of that map is actually from 1920, but Santa Barbara hasn't changed all that much even on this timeline, so using it for early 60s TW Santa Barbara isn't that much of a stretch.
TW's SBSR mostly follows OTL's routes, but there's about fifty percent more track (in this area) than on our TL and I tweaked some of the routes to make more – to my mind – sensible ones.
There are a lot of other tweaks on the map, most of which don't show up at this size. The “business cards” on the top all have their addresses changed to RoC ones (and the one on the far left is for Elena's lawyers), “State St” has been renamed “Nacional” (because why would a Californian nation name a street “State?”), Thomas Bros offices are now in Monterey and San Pablo, rather than Oakland and San Francisco, and it says “Republic of California” rather than just “California” in the legend (about the only change that's easily/at all visible).
So, what's going to be the next Shadow or Doc Savage?
re: Santa Barbara Map: The original of that map is actually from 1920, but Santa Barbara hasn't changed all that much even on this timeline, so using it for early 60s TW Santa Barbara isn't that much of a stretch.
TW's SBSR mostly follows OTL's routes, but there's about fifty percent more track (in this area) than on our TL and I tweaked some of the routes to make more – to my mind – sensible ones.
There are a lot of other tweaks on the map, most of which don't show up at this size. The “business cards” on the top all have their addresses changed to RoC ones (and the one on the far left is for Elena's lawyers), “State St” has been renamed “Nacional” (because why would a Californian nation name a street “State?”), Thomas Bros offices are now in Monterey and San Pablo, rather than Oakland and San Francisco, and it says “Republic of California” rather than just “California” in the legend (about the only change that's easily/at all visible).
Robert Gill
re: “Another Earth”:
“I could nitpick the idea of a mirror Earth having an identical existence for billions of years, but I won't.” Mind you, it's a “nit” about the size of...from here to the Far Side of the Sun...
re: “John Carter”: “I'm unsure about Burroughs as a young adult in 1881...ERB was born in 1875.” That's actually pretty much from the book:
...which of course would make him a good 25 in 1881 (though the book has Carter “die” in early 1886). Remember the ERB in the book is not the same one as the ERB writing it.
Personally, I had trouble with them throwing in all the explanations of how he got to Barsoom, and wanting to get back to Earth and excessively long opening backstory. In the book, he gives a brief description of himself, of his mining venture, of being chased by Indians, and of his passing out in the mysterious cave.
A dash more than four-thousand words into the novel (equivalent of maybe five minutes of movie time, if they stretched it) and he's on Mars. He never seems to question how he got there, never shows any desire to get back to Earth, and basically instantly slides into stabbing things with swords and falling in love at first sight with Princesses.
And no flashbacks to troubling families he'd apparently lost – in fact, he remembers very little of his past at all, and certainly doesn't go all flashbacky about it.
Still, it's mostly ERB's Barsoom, if slightly mucked up. For real mucking up, though, you have to look to the idiots who ran its advertising campaign...
ct: Me: re: “Stone Spring”: The next two books of the trilogy are Bronze Summer and Iron Winter, respectively.
Bronze Summer's supposed to be out all ready, but it's both out of stock and not yet published at Amazon! Iron Winter was set (acto Baxter's website) for “mid 2012,” but it lacks even Bronze Summer's Schrödinger-like presence on Amazon.
ct: Sidaway: Fringe has apparently gotten it's last season after all, so lets see if they can tie everything up in twenty-four episodes.
I think Tesla's actual quirks would make him too much like the character “Monk” - and, honestly, there's only so many extreme OCD characters TV can support.
ct: Cron: I'm having trouble seeing South-East Asian elephants surviving a South-West American climate – to say nothing of having Navajos solve that most intractable of all problem: Breeding elephants!
re: “John Carter”: “I'm unsure about Burroughs as a young adult in 1881...ERB was born in 1875.” That's actually pretty much from the book:
“My first recollection of Captain Carter is of the few months he spent at my father's home in Virginia, just prior to the opening of the civil war. I was then a child of but five years...”
...which of course would make him a good 25 in 1881 (though the book has Carter “die” in early 1886). Remember the ERB in the book is not the same one as the ERB writing it.
Personally, I had trouble with them throwing in all the explanations of how he got to Barsoom, and wanting to get back to Earth and excessively long opening backstory. In the book, he gives a brief description of himself, of his mining venture, of being chased by Indians, and of his passing out in the mysterious cave.
A dash more than four-thousand words into the novel (equivalent of maybe five minutes of movie time, if they stretched it) and he's on Mars. He never seems to question how he got there, never shows any desire to get back to Earth, and basically instantly slides into stabbing things with swords and falling in love at first sight with Princesses.
And no flashbacks to troubling families he'd apparently lost – in fact, he remembers very little of his past at all, and certainly doesn't go all flashbacky about it.
Still, it's mostly ERB's Barsoom, if slightly mucked up. For real mucking up, though, you have to look to the idiots who ran its advertising campaign...
ct: Me: re: “Stone Spring”: The next two books of the trilogy are Bronze Summer and Iron Winter, respectively.
Bronze Summer's supposed to be out all ready, but it's both out of stock and not yet published at Amazon! Iron Winter was set (acto Baxter's website) for “mid 2012,” but it lacks even Bronze Summer's Schrödinger-like presence on Amazon.
ct: Sidaway: Fringe has apparently gotten it's last season after all, so lets see if they can tie everything up in twenty-four episodes.
I think Tesla's actual quirks would make him too much like the character “Monk” - and, honestly, there's only so many extreme OCD characters TV can support.
ct: Cron: I'm having trouble seeing South-East Asian elephants surviving a South-West American climate – to say nothing of having Navajos solve that most intractable of all problem: Breeding elephants!
Dale Cozort
At some point, I suspect, your Uncle had (or thought he had) a very good use for empty cereal boxes. And saving things like that sometimes take on a life of their own (which perhaps explains the six-foot high stack of two-decade-old plastic super-big-gulp cups in the corner of my kitchen. I no longer collect new ones, but they have just enough occasional potential use that I can't bring myself to toss the old ones).
Do you alternate between “Navajo” and “Navaho” for a reason?
re: “New Galveston”: I remember the earlier incarnations of this. Much better now.
Somehow, I can't see Nazis as being all that good at diplomacy with Aztecs (or any Indian tribes, for that matter).
What's preventing major epidemics from spreading, BTW.
I'm surprised BP hasn't offered to “develop” the Texas oil fields. I mean, they know the oil's there, they know it's going to be drilled for sooner or later. Making sure the derricks, refineries and tankers there fly the BP flag seems a logical move for them.
Mind, I'd go for the California fields first – much easier to drill for then the deep wells in Texas...probably even with equipment they could cobble together from shipboard spares.
re: “One Giant Leap” pt2: Oh cool, he actually is from a “fictional” universe.
Even an “elderly-looking” Chevy is going to look somewhat “futuristic” to him. I'm kinda surprised he picked out the brand from across the parking lot, though, unless by “elderly-looking” you mean “from/before the 60s.”
More please!
re: “There will Always be an England” pt8: We're at the point in the story now where I tend to forget I'm supposed to be making comments on problems/nits and such...and just keep reading to find out what happens.
Which is a good thing.
“The German-held Channel Islands...seemed unaffected” You know, given how low and flat those suckers are, they should have been badly hit by the tsunami. Ditto the Outer Hebrides (especially with all those fjords to channel the wave inland). Mind you, that may explain the lack of people they saw up there...heck, a third of the entire population of the islands is in Stornoway, a city with an average elevation of about thirty, forty feet, right at the end of a nice wedge-shaped fjord that couldn't be better made to channel, compress and boost the height of a tsunami coming from Britain if it had been designed for that purpose.
re: “Snapshot” pt11: How about a small, innocent-looking trail – and leading the way for the troops are four or five bulldozers?
“You get in the big dog's way and you get run over.” Yeah, just remember, the little dog's got a dinosaur for a friend...
Honestly can't see anything wrong with this section.
re: “BEMs Really Are Alien” pt5: For something you're making up on the fly, this hangs together well.
If the story has any problem it's that a lot of it is just our narrator thinking. The ratio of “thinking” to “dialog” and “action” may, at the moment, be a bit high (though it's understandable, given you're trying to figure out what's going on almost as much as he is).
re: Germany and Nationalist China: How likely is it that Germany could influence the Japanese towards a “head north” strategy? Not only would them attacking the Soviets be a German wet dream, but since it would primarily be a land war, it would increasingly suck anything the Japanese might be pointing at the Chinese away and – just possibly – allow Germany to navigate that fine line of remaining friends and almost allies with one of its real ally's enemies. Heck, they signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets in spite of being allied with Japan against them at the same time, so it's not impossible. Still...
re: Railroads and War: It's difficult to get “less competent” Union railroad management (or vice-versa, more competent Southern) simply because, on the whole, all the good railroad people were up north.
Some of that is simply because most of the railroad building was in the north, but a lot of it was because building railroads was as much (or more) a stock-market “game” as it ever was laying track. Given the communication limits of the day, that almost required you company heads be near the big stock markets of the north. And of course, since they were there (and telepresence is a...ways off), they had to have their top managers and engineers and whatnot in the same city as they were.
Which puts the majority of your talent in the big northern cities.
I'm not saying that an idiot couldn't have ended up in charge in the North's railways. But Lincoln showed he was more than willing to keep “firing” people (mostly generals, of course) until he got some that could actually do the job...and it would probably take a lot fewer firings to get a good one for the railroads than for the Army of the Potomac...
And I'm also not saying you couldn't have gotten a genius working for the South. It's just that he would have so much less to work with,3 it almost doesn't matter how good he was.
The main problem is that the South just didn't have the railroad infrastructure the North did – most of its railroads were short ones designed to get stuff from inland cities to coastal ports and vice-versa. And where they had a decent rail-web, it was because this was the southern fringe of the Northern rail network – which meant it was more use to the Union than to them.
Basically, Baltimore – thirty-five miles north of Washington – had five, six railroad lines feeding into it and was connected to almost the entire rest of the “Northern” railway grid. Alexandria – fifty miles south of Washington – had all of one, whose only connections to other Southern railroads were three lines to the south that weren't even the same gauge.
It also doesn't help that most of the southern railroad construction work force is slaves. By the nature of the battle, if you want to build/repair a railroad, you're putting that force within easy slipping away distance of Union forces (assuming you can get permission from a slave owner to move slaves into an area that dangerous – in a couple of ways – in the first place).
ct: Tom Cron: A Chicago sent back to 1600 would be – burned down or no – the single largest source of easily acquired metals on the continent. Probably more there than would be mined in (future) U.S. territory for the next couple of hundred years. Heck, the gold stocks from jewelry stores, banks, metal supply companies alone could cause a weird “gold rush” to the city.
This might be by the French, given the century. I can see their “Voyageurs” discovering the city (or remains of it, by that time), them pouring a lot more support into small colony, forts, etc to keep this mine of metal (and knowledge – we'll assuming even with repeated burning, a lot of books survive. What could be done with an Atlas of North America? A world atlas...that shows them all the Pacific Island and Australia and New Zealand? What does French science do with a “CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics”?) away from the English and Spanish (Chicago as Cíbola?).
Sans any other changes Chicago would cause, you've just re-thrown the dice on the next two centuries of North American colonization and wars.
ct: Robert Gill: Like I said above, somehow, I just can't see Nazi diplomacy managing to pull off allying with the Aztecs for long. I suspect they only managed with the Japanese because, well, they really didn't have that much contact, so it gave them less opportunely to screw it up.
ct: Me: “Sorry to hear about the hours shift. That can really mess a body up.” Yes. Yes it can.
“I wonder if similar [fossil] finds fueled American Indian myths.” Well, she's got a book Fossil Legends of the First Americans from 2005, so if I can get to LAPL central (the only library I see that has it), I'll let you know – though going by the title, I'm betting on “yes” at this point...
I like the summary “Crash Course World History” (on Youtube) did on the origin of farming in “The Agricultural Revolution.” Summary, of course, because when you have ten, twelve minute videos to cover several hundred/thousand years, summarize is pretty much all you can do. I like the bit on domesticating snails 13k years ago in Greece.
Just in general, you gotta like John Green's style.
“Yeah, our cats will suddenly and for no apparent reason go after one another. I've never quite figured out the way their hierarchy, if any, works.” Possibly because I think there's a good chance neither have they.
Domestic cats are, after all, originally from a species of cat that, like most of them, didn't go into the whole “pride” or “herd” thing, preferring the solitary life. So from those ancestors, they're getting “how tos” on cat interactions that basically boil down to “my land, go away, leave me alone” as the dominant theme.
The only time they manage to be together, really, is as kittens – but then keeping them as pets tends to keep them reacting as kittens in a lot of ways for their whole lives. And cat reactions, which seem to be remarkably similar across all the various species, do seem to be modifiable to handle permanent cat groupings.
(I suspect that kind of behavior started with siblings that stayed paired up through life, myself)
So we've got an animal that's in a situation its natural instincts aren't quite set up for (though domestics are probably better at it than their ancestors), a situation, further, that then “infantilizes” them (something furthered by spaying and neutering, I bet) so they're not quite grown ups, but no longer quite kittens.
Now not only do they have to mix with others of their kind, but with those funny two-legged cats as well, who barely seem to get any of the signals the proper cats give, but who still manage to dominate the hierarchy!
So in a lot of ways – like us – I suspect they're making it up as they go. We're probably lucky they're not crazier than they are.
ct: Kurt Sidaway: About the only “realistic” Steampunk I've ever read (though there's probably others – I've far from read even a fraction of it), was William Gibson's The Difference Engine – and that's actually more a steam-powered cyberpunk book than actual steampunk.
Do you alternate between “Navajo” and “Navaho” for a reason?
re: “New Galveston”: I remember the earlier incarnations of this. Much better now.
Somehow, I can't see Nazis as being all that good at diplomacy with Aztecs (or any Indian tribes, for that matter).
What's preventing major epidemics from spreading, BTW.
I'm surprised BP hasn't offered to “develop” the Texas oil fields. I mean, they know the oil's there, they know it's going to be drilled for sooner or later. Making sure the derricks, refineries and tankers there fly the BP flag seems a logical move for them.
Mind, I'd go for the California fields first – much easier to drill for then the deep wells in Texas...probably even with equipment they could cobble together from shipboard spares.
re: “One Giant Leap” pt2: Oh cool, he actually is from a “fictional” universe.
Even an “elderly-looking” Chevy is going to look somewhat “futuristic” to him. I'm kinda surprised he picked out the brand from across the parking lot, though, unless by “elderly-looking” you mean “from/before the 60s.”
More please!
re: “There will Always be an England” pt8: We're at the point in the story now where I tend to forget I'm supposed to be making comments on problems/nits and such...and just keep reading to find out what happens.
Which is a good thing.
re: “Snapshot” pt11: How about a small, innocent-looking trail – and leading the way for the troops are four or five bulldozers?
“You get in the big dog's way and you get run over.” Yeah, just remember, the little dog's got a dinosaur for a friend...
Honestly can't see anything wrong with this section.
re: “BEMs Really Are Alien” pt5: For something you're making up on the fly, this hangs together well.
If the story has any problem it's that a lot of it is just our narrator thinking. The ratio of “thinking” to “dialog” and “action” may, at the moment, be a bit high (though it's understandable, given you're trying to figure out what's going on almost as much as he is).
re: Germany and Nationalist China: How likely is it that Germany could influence the Japanese towards a “head north” strategy? Not only would them attacking the Soviets be a German wet dream, but since it would primarily be a land war, it would increasingly suck anything the Japanese might be pointing at the Chinese away and – just possibly – allow Germany to navigate that fine line of remaining friends and almost allies with one of its real ally's enemies. Heck, they signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviets in spite of being allied with Japan against them at the same time, so it's not impossible. Still...
re: Railroads and War: It's difficult to get “less competent” Union railroad management (or vice-versa, more competent Southern) simply because, on the whole, all the good railroad people were up north.
Some of that is simply because most of the railroad building was in the north, but a lot of it was because building railroads was as much (or more) a stock-market “game” as it ever was laying track. Given the communication limits of the day, that almost required you company heads be near the big stock markets of the north. And of course, since they were there (and telepresence is a...ways off), they had to have their top managers and engineers and whatnot in the same city as they were.
Which puts the majority of your talent in the big northern cities.
I'm not saying that an idiot couldn't have ended up in charge in the North's railways. But Lincoln showed he was more than willing to keep “firing” people (mostly generals, of course) until he got some that could actually do the job...and it would probably take a lot fewer firings to get a good one for the railroads than for the Army of the Potomac...
And I'm also not saying you couldn't have gotten a genius working for the South. It's just that he would have so much less to work with,3 it almost doesn't matter how good he was.
The main problem is that the South just didn't have the railroad infrastructure the North did – most of its railroads were short ones designed to get stuff from inland cities to coastal ports and vice-versa. And where they had a decent rail-web, it was because this was the southern fringe of the Northern rail network – which meant it was more use to the Union than to them.
Basically, Baltimore – thirty-five miles north of Washington – had five, six railroad lines feeding into it and was connected to almost the entire rest of the “Northern” railway grid. Alexandria – fifty miles south of Washington – had all of one, whose only connections to other Southern railroads were three lines to the south that weren't even the same gauge.
It also doesn't help that most of the southern railroad construction work force is slaves. By the nature of the battle, if you want to build/repair a railroad, you're putting that force within easy slipping away distance of Union forces (assuming you can get permission from a slave owner to move slaves into an area that dangerous – in a couple of ways – in the first place).
ct: Tom Cron: A Chicago sent back to 1600 would be – burned down or no – the single largest source of easily acquired metals on the continent. Probably more there than would be mined in (future) U.S. territory for the next couple of hundred years. Heck, the gold stocks from jewelry stores, banks, metal supply companies alone could cause a weird “gold rush” to the city.
This might be by the French, given the century. I can see their “Voyageurs” discovering the city (or remains of it, by that time), them pouring a lot more support into small colony, forts, etc to keep this mine of metal (and knowledge – we'll assuming even with repeated burning, a lot of books survive. What could be done with an Atlas of North America? A world atlas...that shows them all the Pacific Island and Australia and New Zealand? What does French science do with a “CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics”?) away from the English and Spanish (Chicago as Cíbola?).
Sans any other changes Chicago would cause, you've just re-thrown the dice on the next two centuries of North American colonization and wars.
ct: Robert Gill: Like I said above, somehow, I just can't see Nazi diplomacy managing to pull off allying with the Aztecs for long. I suspect they only managed with the Japanese because, well, they really didn't have that much contact, so it gave them less opportunely to screw it up.
ct: Me: “Sorry to hear about the hours shift. That can really mess a body up.” Yes. Yes it can.
“I wonder if similar [fossil] finds fueled American Indian myths.” Well, she's got a book Fossil Legends of the First Americans from 2005, so if I can get to LAPL central (the only library I see that has it), I'll let you know – though going by the title, I'm betting on “yes” at this point...
I like the summary “Crash Course World History” (on Youtube) did on the origin of farming in “The Agricultural Revolution.” Summary, of course, because when you have ten, twelve minute videos to cover several hundred/thousand years, summarize is pretty much all you can do. I like the bit on domesticating snails 13k years ago in Greece.
Just in general, you gotta like John Green's style.
“Yeah, our cats will suddenly and for no apparent reason go after one another. I've never quite figured out the way their hierarchy, if any, works.” Possibly because I think there's a good chance neither have they.
Domestic cats are, after all, originally from a species of cat that, like most of them, didn't go into the whole “pride” or “herd” thing, preferring the solitary life. So from those ancestors, they're getting “how tos” on cat interactions that basically boil down to “my land, go away, leave me alone” as the dominant theme.
The only time they manage to be together, really, is as kittens – but then keeping them as pets tends to keep them reacting as kittens in a lot of ways for their whole lives. And cat reactions, which seem to be remarkably similar across all the various species, do seem to be modifiable to handle permanent cat groupings.
(I suspect that kind of behavior started with siblings that stayed paired up through life, myself)
So we've got an animal that's in a situation its natural instincts aren't quite set up for (though domestics are probably better at it than their ancestors), a situation, further, that then “infantilizes” them (something furthered by spaying and neutering, I bet) so they're not quite grown ups, but no longer quite kittens.
Now not only do they have to mix with others of their kind, but with those funny two-legged cats as well, who barely seem to get any of the signals the proper cats give, but who still manage to dominate the hierarchy!
So in a lot of ways – like us – I suspect they're making it up as they go. We're probably lucky they're not crazier than they are.
ct: Kurt Sidaway: About the only “realistic” Steampunk I've ever read (though there's probably others – I've far from read even a fraction of it), was William Gibson's The Difference Engine – and that's actually more a steam-powered cyberpunk book than actual steampunk.
Kurt Sidaway
Let's see, your job literally drove you away from it...and I won the “Library Follies?”
I'm not sure how to respond to that...
re: Robert Gill: “...with was so topical that it was only filmed the week it was shown.” Similar to South Park – who frequently deliver their episodes like fifteen minutes before they're supposed to go on the air.
Something all the more impressive given it's animated.
ct: Me: “Did it [The First Fossil Hunters] postulate on dragons?” Yes – though not inspired by pterosaurs. Winged dragons, worldwide, seem rather rare, actually. Only Europe seemed to go in for them, and then not until the Medieval period, onwards.
Oh, it would be nothing like modern evolutionary theory. But just having the idea that things can change and “the fittest survive” that early could have major effects on biology4 over the next couple of millenia.
“Another I have found fascinating and a potential source of AH ideas is Modern Mechanix” Yeah, I like that one. And for simple image fodder (for covers and stuff) I've been following Shorpy Historical Photo Archive and Golden Age Comic Book Stories.
re: RoC and the Sea, pt.4: I went with “And it was an affair she couldn't afford to do often.” as the “too” seemed redundant when paired with “often.”
“then it cut off as she raised her sails and glided eastwards, out of the bay...” I went with “her sails” rather than “its” to prevent sailing people from getting all tetchy about boats being “hers” not “its”...
She now has a better estimate for this particular trip's time (“which for today's mild chop probably meant about a six, six-and-a-half hours sail”) and her arrival is much less precise (“a little after eleven-thirty”). Mind, I keep fiddling with exactly when everything happens to try an ensure she has a) enough “free time” that it really is free time while b) make it look like she didn't leave absurdly early for no reason.
“She didn't want to think about the costs of topping off the petrol tank tomorrow to cover even the little she'd used on this trip.”
I was trying to say that she was buying petrol both to cover the amount she'd used leaving the island and docking in Santa Barbara and the amount she'd use going back – but you're right, it just made a confusing mess of a sentence.
“Dolar” is local spelling for TW's RoC, yes.
ct: Dale Cozort: re: “One Giant Leap”: The only problem I have with the description of “obese and scruffy looking” is that our character just came from the era of the “Summer of Love” and “Woodstock” - even the homeless generally don't get that “scruffy” any more.
In the weird world of American racial naming standards, for the late 60s, “Caucasians and Blacks” would be correct – at least, if the person saying it was trying to be that era's version of “politically correct” and/or “liberal” (and was white). “Black” had replaced “Negro/id” by that time, but “Caucasian” was still in common use.
Walmart to a 1960s resident would look enough like a big department store (Sears, Montgomery Wards, etc.) or supermarket that they would easily recognize it as a store, even if they were fuzzy on just what kind. The shopping carts all over would just confirm their suspicions (the carts would probably push their assumption towards “supermarket” mind, but...).
I'm not sure how to respond to that...
re: Robert Gill: “...with was so topical that it was only filmed the week it was shown.” Similar to South Park – who frequently deliver their episodes like fifteen minutes before they're supposed to go on the air.
Something all the more impressive given it's animated.
ct: Me: “Did it [The First Fossil Hunters] postulate on dragons?” Yes – though not inspired by pterosaurs. Winged dragons, worldwide, seem rather rare, actually. Only Europe seemed to go in for them, and then not until the Medieval period, onwards.
Oh, it would be nothing like modern evolutionary theory. But just having the idea that things can change and “the fittest survive” that early could have major effects on biology4 over the next couple of millenia.
“Another I have found fascinating and a potential source of AH ideas is Modern Mechanix” Yeah, I like that one. And for simple image fodder (for covers and stuff) I've been following Shorpy Historical Photo Archive and Golden Age Comic Book Stories.
re: RoC and the Sea, pt.4: I went with “And it was an affair she couldn't afford to do often.” as the “too” seemed redundant when paired with “often.”
“then it cut off as she raised her sails and glided eastwards, out of the bay...” I went with “her sails” rather than “its” to prevent sailing people from getting all tetchy about boats being “hers” not “its”...
She now has a better estimate for this particular trip's time (“which for today's mild chop probably meant about a six, six-and-a-half hours sail”) and her arrival is much less precise (“a little after eleven-thirty”). Mind, I keep fiddling with exactly when everything happens to try an ensure she has a) enough “free time” that it really is free time while b) make it look like she didn't leave absurdly early for no reason.
“She didn't want to think about the costs of topping off the petrol tank tomorrow to cover even the little she'd used on this trip.”
I was trying to say that she was buying petrol both to cover the amount she'd used leaving the island and docking in Santa Barbara and the amount she'd use going back – but you're right, it just made a confusing mess of a sentence.
“Dolar” is local spelling for TW's RoC, yes.
ct: Dale Cozort: re: “One Giant Leap”: The only problem I have with the description of “obese and scruffy looking” is that our character just came from the era of the “Summer of Love” and “Woodstock” - even the homeless generally don't get that “scruffy” any more.
In the weird world of American racial naming standards, for the late 60s, “Caucasians and Blacks” would be correct – at least, if the person saying it was trying to be that era's version of “politically correct” and/or “liberal” (and was white). “Black” had replaced “Negro/id” by that time, but “Caucasian” was still in common use.
Walmart to a 1960s resident would look enough like a big department store (Sears, Montgomery Wards, etc.) or supermarket that they would easily recognize it as a store, even if they were fuzzy on just what kind. The shopping carts all over would just confirm their suspicions (the carts would probably push their assumption towards “supermarket” mind, but...).
Anthony Docimo
re: Reality Seeds:
I can't see the Mormons siding with Mexico in the war, given that the land they wanted in Utah was then owned by Mexico and siding with the U.S. was a very good PR move for them to, well, take it.
Now Mexico might have offered them the land in exchange for defending it from the U.S...but that would require a Mexico that hadn't already been burned by inviting in Americans to build up Texas's population and help them hold that territory (“it worked so well,” he said with heavy sarcasm).
Which means there probably wouldn't be a Mexican-American war in the first place (at least, not then).
Sitting it out is possible, I guess, but they really, really needed that “good will” from the U.S. when they colonized Utah. I mean, even with it, the U.S. wasn't all that keen on them being there. Sans a “Mormon Battalion” in the war and, well, the “Mountain Meadows massacre” might well lead to an end to Mormon power in Utah.
re: Haig: So if we get rid of Haig somehow, have we got a path open to a fascist or communist Britain in the 20s? Either would make WWII...interesting.
Now Mexico might have offered them the land in exchange for defending it from the U.S...but that would require a Mexico that hadn't already been burned by inviting in Americans to build up Texas's population and help them hold that territory (“it worked so well,” he said with heavy sarcasm).
Which means there probably wouldn't be a Mexican-American war in the first place (at least, not then).
Sitting it out is possible, I guess, but they really, really needed that “good will” from the U.S. when they colonized Utah. I mean, even with it, the U.S. wasn't all that keen on them being there. Sans a “Mormon Battalion” in the war and, well, the “Mountain Meadows massacre” might well lead to an end to Mormon power in Utah.
re: Haig: So if we get rid of Haig somehow, have we got a path open to a fascist or communist Britain in the 20s? Either would make WWII...interesting.
Wesley Kawato
“I've now completed 3 issues on a computer a programmer told me could die on me at any time.” Yeah – but only by using it for nothing but producing those three issues. You'll really be in trouble if “any time” is, say, at issue 3.5 or so...
You really, really need to get a replacement.
I rather liked Tsouras's5 Gettysburg...and not just because I agree with him that the South did just about the best it could possibly do on OTL...with all other possibilities being “do worse.”
ct: Me: “Matthew Peary6 was sending regular progress reports on his expedition to the North Pole. Tesla probably got a hold of those reports easily.” Probably very easily indeed – as Peary didn't leave New York until July 6th, 1908...a week after the Tunguska Event on June 30th, 1908.7
So if violating all the laws of physics, going against what we know of the actual life of Tesla, and even violating how Tesla himself said his “Peace Ray” was supposed to work (not that Wardenclyffe was his “Peace Ray” in the first place, but never mind) isn't enough to disprove the whole “Tesla Caused Tunguska” idea, can we agree that the fact the central point of it was his supposed attempt to communicate with someone in the Arctic who we now see hadn't even left New York a the time of the Tunguska Event qualifies as a really big hammer to a ten-foot tall, coffin-sealing nail?
ct: Cozort: If your webmaster can handle a nearly twenty year old PC running Win98, he should have no problem handling anything Dale might send your way. Actually, unless you got a iMac or a unix machine, the days of “not being familiar with this model” are essentially over (at least, software-wise). And even with one of the others, well, your webmaster's probably had experience with them too.
You almost literally have a museum piece there...I mean, if any museum wanted to display a 90s “Packard Hell” machine. I had one at the time, and I'm amazed yours lasted until 2002, let alone 2012!
I wonder how much inside is still original?
“You seem to think history is easy to change.” So do I, actually. In a world where a few seconds delay before scoodlypooping8 can result in an entirely different person being born – or no person being born at all – changing history is easy...
...controlling that change, OTOH, is probably incredibly hard, for much the same reasons that the simple change itself is easy.
You really, really need to get a replacement.
I rather liked Tsouras's5 Gettysburg...and not just because I agree with him that the South did just about the best it could possibly do on OTL...with all other possibilities being “do worse.”
ct: Me: “Matthew Peary6 was sending regular progress reports on his expedition to the North Pole. Tesla probably got a hold of those reports easily.” Probably very easily indeed – as Peary didn't leave New York until July 6th, 1908...a week after the Tunguska Event on June 30th, 1908.7
So if violating all the laws of physics, going against what we know of the actual life of Tesla, and even violating how Tesla himself said his “Peace Ray” was supposed to work (not that Wardenclyffe was his “Peace Ray” in the first place, but never mind) isn't enough to disprove the whole “Tesla Caused Tunguska” idea, can we agree that the fact the central point of it was his supposed attempt to communicate with someone in the Arctic who we now see hadn't even left New York a the time of the Tunguska Event qualifies as a really big hammer to a ten-foot tall, coffin-sealing nail?
ct: Cozort: If your webmaster can handle a nearly twenty year old PC running Win98, he should have no problem handling anything Dale might send your way. Actually, unless you got a iMac or a unix machine, the days of “not being familiar with this model” are essentially over (at least, software-wise). And even with one of the others, well, your webmaster's probably had experience with them too.
You almost literally have a museum piece there...I mean, if any museum wanted to display a 90s “Packard Hell” machine. I had one at the time, and I'm amazed yours lasted until 2002, let alone 2012!
I wonder how much inside is still original?
“You seem to think history is easy to change.” So do I, actually. In a world where a few seconds delay before scoodlypooping8 can result in an entirely different person being born – or no person being born at all – changing history is easy...
...controlling that change, OTOH, is probably incredibly hard, for much the same reasons that the simple change itself is easy.
Seven months after the windstorm, the back yard's looking a great deal better...
Things may have gotten silly from there...
This is a timeline where – for some reason – bicycles continued to be the personal transport vehicle past the 19th century (and past a much more disastrous version of the “Spanish Flu” epidemic). So much so that President Sinclair signed a “bicycle interstate act” in the early 1940s, similar to the OTL's “Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.”
Oh, and Disney, on this TL, apparently went into publishing rather than films (a change made mostly because I have a Disney handwriting font...).
And I just noticed, I made a mistake on the barcode: It should be “POD70 04212012” – you know, the date – rather than “04212102.” Of course, I'm just noticing this now...