Leaping leap goat! (February 2024 scapegoat blame thread)
8After January the 76th finally ended we landed on February 1st, and it couldn’t have come a day too soon. Maybe it’s just me (and likely @pakopako) but that was the longest January of my life. Speaking of @pakopako, I just want to share one last thank you, for a job well done. Was really just a job done, but at least it got done.
So who do we have to blame for the long start to an election year? @duodec of course. Near unanimous election to office and certainly well deserved.
Why yes, I did steal this image of @duodec from the vote thread. You’re welcome.
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Blame: It’s February already. Way too soon.
Plus, I haven’t even figured out any New Year’s resolutions yet.
Unblame: I haven’t failed my New Year’s resolutions yet. That means I exited January without being a spectacular failure. Kinda.
@xobzoo So, just an average, every day run-of-the-mill failure?
@macromeh Yep! A bog-standard failure.
@xobzoo …yet…
Too tired to lay blame.
I requested a change in my insurance plan. It was supposed to take effect today. It didn’t. Many things that I have been trying very hard to get may have just been pushed even farther out of reach. One of them might still be possible to get done on time, but as for the other, I give up. I have been delayed and detoured and denied enough that I have decided to just abandon the quest.
@werehatrack Reevaluate giving up when you are less discouraged. I have have numerous insurance fights and they count on you giving up.
Report this to your state insurance commission. I won several fights that way and I didn’t have to do anything more than give them all my evidence. Grant you the attorney one time told me she (this was free to me) never wanted to deal with that insurance company nor provider ever again (unlikely that would happen based on who was involved) so at least I knew it wasn’t just me.
The insurance company should have an omsbud office or something similar. Complain there. Work your way up the chain. Contact whatever TV station there that brings to light problems. If you can afford it hire an attorney to write a letter… I’d start with the insurance commission and working your way up the chain with the insurance company. Find their annual report and get phone numbers off of there to bypass customer service.
@Kidsandliz The bottleneck is at Medicare itself, and they are absolutely obdurate when it comes to being silent until they are done with whatever they take ten business days to do. It might as well be rituals demanding seven days of fasting in solitude by the application, and then an additional seven-day period of shriving, anointing and blessing before it can be evaluated and either found worthy or wanting, during which none may so much as admit that it exists. If it is found wanting, then the whole process must be undertaken anew with a fresh sacrifice.
I wish I was engaging in gratuitous hyperbole there, but that remark about “during which none may so much as admit that it exists” really is accurate. Medicare provides no way to access real-time information about the progress of the paperwork, and until they are done with it, nothing can happen at the insurance company level. The potential retroactivity of it is strictly symbolic for someone who is blocked from getting what they need while it proceeds, and nobody at the state level even has the authority to ask questions or lodge a request.
If there was something life-threatening involved, then there are procedures for “fix first, clean up paperwork later” to sort of cover it (poorly, according to what I’ve seen). But as all of what I need is regarded as elective, I have a priority level of zero, or maybe a bit less.
And deluded people call it a “health care system”.
@werehatrack You have an advantage plan or regular medicare? Advantage plans are well known for denying shit left and right, even using AI to do so, and you have to appeal blah blah blah.
@Kidsandliz Advantage, but the plan administration company doesn’t even get into the game until Medicare says that the plan is approved. The suckage is at every damn level.
@werehatrack How the heck was a company able to sell a yet to be approved advantage plan??? That seems like it should be illegal. Under those circumstances are you allowed to switch to another advantage plan that actually is allowed to pay claims now?
@Kidsandliz oh, the plan itself is approved, it’s my application to be included in it that has to go through channels and get blessed. This was just a change of plan within the same company, not a new first time enrollment in an advantage plan of any kind. But it’s treated like a new enrollment. So My application has to go through the entire Medicare approval process. Meanwhile, in theory, I still have coverage under the old plan, except that they won’t issue any approvals for things that aren’t urgent because the plan is going to change and by the time that the procedure is done, the plan under which it was approved won’t exist on my policy. And clearly, anything that isn’t so urgent that it requires an emergency room is not so urgent that it can’t be delayed by a couple of weeks or a couple of months or to the end of the year or to next year. So any approvals that exist right now are not going to get paid, or if they do get paid, that payment will be yanked back as a retroactive disapproval of something that was approved to begin with under a plan that went away before the procedure could be completed and billed. And the people providing the services know the pitfalls. And they still call this a health care system.
@werehatrack I’d still contact the insurance commission and tell them that you need help because their delay is compromising your care for the things that were already approved by the previous insurance company; because your previous plan closed this is not your fault; approval to be part of the new plan is automatic (eg you have automatic guaranteed rights (of approval without being subjected to underwriting) by law). Insurance companies don’t want to get into problems with state insurance commissions because state insurance commissions are the ones that approve their ability to offer plans in your state. It’s worth a try. Because your previous plan closed that gives you the right to have regular medicare and a regular supplement plan without medical underwriting as well. There is generally far less problems with regular medicare with getting medical care and the supplements will automatically pay their share if medicare pays for it (that’s the law).
@Kidsandliz The previous plan that I had selected did not close, it remains available, and nominally I’m still on it. However, assuming that my application for the new plan goes through (almost certain) I will retroactively not be on the old plan right now, and any treatment I get during this Schrodingerian period will get disallowed after the fact and will need to be resubmitted - and any treatment I received that required an approval will then have to go through the approval-after-the-fact process which I’ve heard politely described as “Lovecraftian”. All not-yet-performed treatments whose authorizations were issued under the old plan will no longer have authorizations, requiring a resubmission for a new authorization. And the providers can’t apply for that new authorization under the replacement plan yet, because the insurance company doesn’t have the approval back from Medicare for me to be on it. I’m mired in a pit of Catch-22s because my surgeon’s staff doesn’t tell prospective patients that they need to make sure that a certain hospital is in-network before they even select him for their procedure. Had I known this in November, when the open enrollment period was in effect, I could have selected the plan I needed back then - but I didn’t. November was when the surgeon’s staff applied for the authorization for the surgery - which didn’t get approved until January. Had I selected the new plan in November, when they were applying for the approval under the plan in effect for me then, the surgeon’s staff would still have had to immediately request a new authorization when the new plan went into effect, but it would be their problem at this point instead of mine. This particular insurance company has well over a dozen different Advantage plans available in my part of Texas, each with its own distinct pool of providers, almost none of which are in every plan’s pool. The providers don’t try to keep track of their partners’ affiliations and exclusions; I’m pretty sure that they don’t even have access to that information. The entire Byzantine architecture of it is neither unusual in the industry nor unique to this state or area. And the casual malevolence of the effect it has on getting treatment is something that gets handwaved away as inconsequential by the people in charge, because it has zero effect on them. A friend of mine used to be on an advisory board for the Texas insurance regulatory agency, and her advice about how to best deal with this kind of issue is “Move to somewhere sane.”
To give you a slightly broader picture of how this entire insurance coverage process can go south, several of the surgeon’s patients are on plans from Humana, and the hospital that the surgeon uses did not renew its contract with Humana for 2024, leaving those patients with an approval for the procedure but no approval for the hospital. Those poor sods may not even have as much choice of ways to deal with it as I have, as they might be relying on insurance from where they work, with only one plan and no alternates. I will probably be able to get the mess for the surgery straightened out in time, but as for the ADHD meds, I’m simply no longer able to maintain the illusion that the goal is possible. I’m not going to keep on bashing my head against those walls without it.
@werehatrack So next year get out of advantage plans (You can do that through March 31st since you are/were in one) and get regular medicare and a supplement (presuming you pass medical underwriting - if you don’t then you are trapped or pay tons more for the supplement). Tons and tons of places accept medicare - way more than any AP. And medicare plus a supplement is cheaper than many/most advantage plans (that also don’t also have medicaid attached) as many/most of AP’s stab you in the back on the backside with co-pays and out of pockets that are way more than medicare B (many AP’s make you pay for B unless you are low income enough) plus G plus deductible (this year $240).
Also for low income people who have regular medicare, there is a premium assistance program for B you can qualify for although the rules vary by state. In my state you can own a home and have some assets (although you get less help than if you don’t have a home or have much in the way of assets) as long as you meet the income guidelines. In my state there are three different programs with three different sets of rules (and three different levels of help). In my state help also can help with meds (although not med D premiums). My state did not expand medicaid so I am presuming some other states that did may be more generous, but who knows as I haven’t looked it up.
@werehatrack PS and for regular medicare most things don’t require pre-approval the way the do with advantage plans.
@Kidsandliz @werehatrack Its all a question of cost-the supplemental ins plans to medicare cost $ 461-total for me and my wife from UHC but no preapproval crap and you can go to the dtrs you want.
Anticipatory blame.
I figure that tawny punk Phil will see his shadow tomorrow and “predict” 6 more weeks of winter.
If so, I propose we make tomorrow a true “Ground Hog Day” and turn the little pretend porker into faux pork sausage.
I’d wear a top hat to be there for that.
@phendrick today someone told me that this didn’t make sense because hed be more likely to see his shadow if the sun was “closer”/further south reference the tilt. This makes no sense at this time of year. Because with the angle of the earth it would be in a higher latitude in winter. That would be decreasing as we orbit. More overhead. Less shadow. It’s also not quite circular so… You could argue measuring the shadow length in a southern direction of a fixed object at noon would give you a inference. Maybe a 100 years ago.
Now. It’s a little more fucked up
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But always a good time to watch classic Bill Murray and edjumacate the younglings on proper cinema
@unksol I second on watching the film, imho his best. But don’t you otherwise lose my respect by telling me you are trying to make sense of anything connected to that travesty of science foisted on us annually by publicity and tourism seekers.
@phendrick note I said a fixed object. I.e. measuring the shadow. Like a sun dial. Or many other things we know ancient civilizations did/figured out. In a period where of thousands of years of observation someone may have noticed that the shadow was measurably longer than other years when the earth was at a longer point in its oblong orbit and it might have been able to make a relatively colder winter just because we were further from the sun. Farmers almanac stuff.
Obviously that would be realitive at best, short lived, still a guess. And unless someone petrified and shoved a steel rod up it, useless for a ghoper
More the concept of measuring the length of a fixed shadow would indicate something they might be able to infer and then some idiot decided a gopher might notice. If the sun was directly overhead in that latitude, at that time it wouldn’t be able to see it’s shadow. It would get warmer.
Do I believe any of that? No. Do I believe someone could logic themselves into that a couple hundred years ago, especially considering the insane shit people do today? Absolutely
Do I believe they are that dumb in that town now? No. But harmless tourist attraction connected with a beloved movie about human redemption.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No idiots believe it
@unksol And the results are in (complete with “live” recorded video):
https://weather.com/news/weather/news/2024-02-02-groundhog-day-shadow-punxsutawney-phil
@phendrick lol I don’t care enough to watch it or ever go. I’ll stick with the movie.
I’d take an ontime spring instead of a long winter. But it’s pretty clear our weather patterns are getting less and less predictable so the effects of orbital mechanics, if there ever were any, would have always been slight, and undetectable for a long time. Never mind the random 6 weeks. You’d math it if using shadows. But you also wouldn’t use a large talking rodent so
@phendrick @unksol There seems to be a lot of mystery surrounding this particular rodent, despite many years of observation. For example, in addition to the question of their weather prediction abilities, there is still no clear answer to the amount of timber they could fling (if, indeed, they could toss it).
@macromeh @phendrick February has often been the worst month of winter. I have all my windows open for 2 hours. Weather underground says the outside temp should be 38. It’s not. It is dropping.
My outside temp sensor keeps locking up so I don’t have a reading. But hopeful phil called it
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
And so do all goats. Just saying, I want my kickstarter icon back when this is done.
@duodec I know several other goats have asked for an icon change so I’d imagine you’d be able to get your K back as the pictured icon.
@duodec it has an automatic hierarchy. But they let you chose. Had I known about it after the death knoll of woot I might have backed/joined. I definitely would not have maintained it though
@duodec @unksol death gnoll > death knoll
@capnjb @duodec death gnoll > death knell?
I clearly fucked that up and looked at it and was like… Eh fuck it.
But Bezos was the death gnoll of woot so. Meh
@duodec @unksol You are right in so many wrong directions
@duodec @unksol Knoll is likely a derivative of knell. No one is judging
Although, if death knoll ever becomes Darth Gnoll, I’m checking out of the Disney universe 
@capnjb @duodec @unksol And then there’s the infamous “grassy knoll” that folks in Texas often still cringe about.
@capnjb @duodec @werehatrack Jeff bezos is a gnoll. He stood on a grassy knoll while causing (breakfast octopus) the death knell of woot
@duodec @unksol @werehatrack That’s a lot to unpack
@capnjb @duodec @werehatrack regardless the titular death gnoll of woot is bezos
@capnjb @duodec @unksol @werehatrack
The gnoll on the knoll mulling the death knell of Woot.
@capnjb also just cause
Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.
Death knolls are real
@unksol I love when conversations go sideways.
@capnjb always fun to run down a gopher hole
@capnjb @unksol Except the ones the gophers crapped in.
@capnjb @phendrick @unksol Well tomorrow you can go down Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole.
@capnjb @Kidsandliz @phendrick weed is not legal here. And I’m a square
@unksol
Topologically, more of a toroid.
@unksol @werehatrack You think he looks more like a donut than a cheeseball?
@phendrick @werehatrack don’t really eat many doughnuts either… Clearly of your given options we must choose rod like. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Round and empty in the middle may work as a cross-section
@capnjb @Kidsandliz @phendrick and just for the record, I think weed should be legal everywhere, the war on drugs is/was BS, and I think it could potentially help in low doses, but. If you wanna get high I give no fucks.
Just not legal here. So I’ve never had any. And a little too old to slide over state lines and do it with friends. They have families now
@phendrick @unksol Clearly toroid; has passage though center.
@phendrick @werehatrack crosssection. Appears rod like externally. And also to agree with @unrequited wat?
wat.
Another amazing author some years later. I’ve been a reader all my life and there are some passages and quotes that just stick with you… He had a way, just like Professor Tolkien, with words and thoughts. This quoted passage is trimmed down to what was in the (amazing, incredible) movie but still gets the point across…
Terry Pratchett - “The Hogfather”, Death (the Grim Reaper CAPITALIZED) talking with his granddaughter Susan Sto-Helit.
"HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.’
‘Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little -’
‘YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.’
‘So we can believe the big ones?’
‘YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.’
“They’re not the same at all!”
‘YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET - Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.’
‘Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point -’
‘MY POINT EXACTLY.’
.
.
.
‘YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?’
@duodec yeah… Nope
@duodec Mercy, justice and right are not lies, they are essential elements of the societal norms contract. The fact that they are just concepts does not make them false. Things invented and promulgated which are demonstrably unprovable are almost always lies, and the concepts which are demonstrably untrue are lies by definition. And yes, there are societal constructs which have been and sometimes continue to be venerated despite being very clearly shown to be lies today, regardless of whether they may have had superficial validity in the past. Should we preserve the lies that cause various levels of harm, just for the sake of Tradition? No. As for the ones that “do no harm”, is that really true? Do we truly make children more ready to accept the norms by telling them untruths, or do we instead make them more likely to believe the pernicious lies by inculcating them to the idea that things which are clearly impossible are Great Truths?
Blame: Society. Always Society.
I’ve read Robert Heinlein stories since I was a kid. Although “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and “Starship Troopers” (and no, not the stupid movie sharing the name) were all time favorites, one passage from the Lazarus Long stories always stuck in my head.
I haven’t managed to learn many of these but I have done more than a few.
"“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. "
"Specialization is for insects.”
Before someone leaps on that last, he didn’t mean you shouldn’t specialize in brain surgery, or diesel mechanics, or missile design or other field of endeavor. But being a one trick pony who can’t do anything else, is an unforgivable waste.
@duodec I have done all but the last, and in the end, nearly everyone I know who specialized on one thing for their livelihood and career is far better off than I am, and has the free time afforded by being able to pay others to perform the tasks for which they believe that they lack the skills. Yes, I am the most self-sufficient person I know, but what of it? All in all, I’d rather not be looking at a mountain of tasks that I have neither enough time to do nor enough money to farm out.
Jerry Pournelle’s “A Step Farther Out” is a series of essays that covered the need for humanity to get off the Earth and begin developing the resources of the entire solar system in order to avoid “Four Dooms–starvation, pollution, overpopulation, and depletion of natural resources”.
Not just survival but survival with style; if only we dared to try, and didn’t trap ourselves on earth until its too late and the resources are gone…
Another Pournelle quote I hadn’t seen but my nephew sent when he was serving in Iraq:
“To stand on the firing parapet and expose yourself to danger; to stand and fight a thousand miles from home when you’re all alone and outnumbered and probably beaten; to spit on your hands and lower the pike; to stand fast over the body of Leonidas the King; to be rear guard at Kunu-Ri; to stand and be still to the Birkenhead Drill; these are not rational acts. They are often merely necessary.”
And then there is “Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy” which you can look up yourselves.
He brought amazing worlds to life.
BLAME - the elevators are out in our building. I live on the 4th floor and had to carry all the groceries UP 4 flights of stairs!!! More than one trip since I had them piled in a wagon (wagon is kept in the car and I usually walk down the stairs when I leave) not anticipating that.
E. E. “Doc” Smith has been heralded as the master of Space Opera, a particular genre of science fiction. He wrote actively from 1915 until his passing in 1965, and is best known for his “Lensman” and Skylark series.
His heroes, heroines, and worlds are outsize and fantastic, but definitely a product of their time; an open and understanding mind is needed for modern readers… the past is another country; they do things differently there.
“The forearm was wrapped in thick insulation, molds and shields snapped into place, and there flared out an instantly-suppressed flash of brilliance intolerable. Then the molds fell apart, the insulation was removed, and there was revealed the LENS. Clasped to Kinnison’s brawny wrist by a bracelet of imperishable, almost unbreakable, metal in which it was imbedded it shone in all its lambent splendor–no longer a whitely inert piece of jewelry, but a lenticular polychrome of writhing, almost fluid radiance which proclaimed to all observers in symbols of ever-changing flame that here was a Lensman of the GALACTIC PATROL.” Lensman series.
"If any one of you will concentrate upon one single fact, or small object, such as a pebble or the seed of a plant or other creature, for as short a period of time as one hundred of your years, you will begin to perceive its truth.” (says a practically immortal Arisian to a human)
“As if contemptuous of any weapons the lifeboat might wield, the mother ship simply defended herself from the attacking beams, in much the same fashion as a wildcat mother wards off the claws and teeth of her spitting, snarling kitten who is resenting a touch of needed maternal discipline.” Triplanetary
“As I have said before and am about to say again, you’re a blinding flash and a deafening report–the universe’s best.” Skylark of Space, Dick Seaton to his fiancé.
When I used the “blinding flash and deafening report” and “seven sector callout” to my wife, the look I got…
Holy Klono’s tungsten teeth and curving carballoy claws! Its time to re-read my Smith collection again!
@duodec IMO, Smith’s books have not weathered well. The prejudice and the stilted prose of his era just grates horribly for me now. I recall thinking that they were more than a little outdated when I first read them in the '60s, and a recent brief revisit left me with no desire to continue to the end of the Skylark book I’d picked up. To be fair, from where I sit, very little pre-1985 SF seems to have escaped a visit from the Suck Fairy in the intervening years. The world has moved on both technically and socially, and I am intensely glad of it.
@duodec @werehatrack I’m a Clark Ashton Smith woman, myself.
It has been too long since I read The Martian Chronicles but I remember the fascination. Ray Bradbury is another brilliant SF writer whose fame and reach have slowly faded with time, but his stories are well worth finding. His stories crossed boundaries from hard science fiction to near fantasies, horror, mysteries… an amazingly versatile talent.
“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”
“A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.”
@duodec It has been ages since I read The martian Chronicles. All I remember is the story where the earthling astronaut lands and meets a martian psychiatrist, who shoots the human with a bee(!) because he wouldn’t renounce his insanity. Then, when the hallucinations didn’t disappear with the death of the human, the martian shot himself to keep the psychosis from spreading. (Apparently hallucinations are tangible for them and contagious.)
Or maybe that was a completely different book entirely.
Andre Norton wrote some amazing stories in science fiction and fantasy; its been a while and I need to pick them up again. I read her Magic trilogy (Steel, Octagon, and Fur) in grade school (more Magic books came later) and enjoyed them just as much when I bought them again a few years go (even though they are ‘juveniles’). But the quotes below are from some of her more serious stories.
Remembering that, I’m amazed at how many great science fiction books were in that school library, all of them content-reasonable for grade schoolers but many suitable for adults.
/showme Andre Norton Octagon Magic
Not every fantasy story needs to be in other worlds, or feature supernatural characters… sometimes the magic of imagination can take a mundane setting (a farm in a terrible blizzard) and make it fantastic by opening the mind of an unexpected character to our view in a brilliant and unexpected way.
Jon Katz, in his book “Rose in a Storm” does this with a farm dog. The way a dog thinks, the spirit of dogs, ancestral memory, and in the gravest extreme, channeling that spirit into the real world. Love, duty, and a practical realism
There really aren’t any quotes I can use that aren’t a page or more long, too long for this venue, but if you are a dog person, if you’ve read and enjoyed Donald McCaig’s dog stories (“Nop’s Trial”, “Nop’s Hope”, “Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men”) or (to a lesser extent) W. Bruce Cameron’s “A Dogs Purpose”, this is an amazing book.
/showme border collie named rose out in a snow storm
Unblame
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for those who can’t do math, just divide 360 by 8 to give you X.
@Kidsandliz On Texas 121 between Melissa and Trenton, there is a freshly-installed sign that just says SPEED LIMIT with no numerals. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to stop and grap a picture when I went past it on Tuesday.
@Kidsandliz @werehatrack Nice of them to specify that there is a limit. I always liked one from a 1980’s science fiction magazine:
SPEED
LIMIT
C
not just
a good idea
its the law
(if you don’t get it think Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity)
@duodec @werehatrack Shine on light shine on… Right?
Keith Laumer was my favorite SF writer for decades and remains in my top 10 list. He had multiple series of books from hard military SF (Bolo) to SF Adventure and amazing satires on diplomacy (Retief).
Bolos were cybernetic tanks which became self-aware in later Marks and took on surprising personal characteristics while they also gained the description of Continental (and later Planetary) Siege Units.
Jame Retief worked for the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne (CDT), which nominally represented the human Concordiat but in actuality fumbled most of its tasks, consistently tried to enrich its own members at the cost of the Concordiat, while bargaining away the homes, wealth, and rights of the humans pioneering distant border worlds to various rival or enemy aliens. Retief worked within this stultifying framework, often making the CDT, howling and screaming, do the right thing for the Concordiat and for allied aliens.
Bolo
Retief, Diplomat at Arms
So many possible quotes but I’ll leave this with the name of one of the antagonists in a Retief story, whose title I have often used in teasing younger relatives:
MP & I of IU Honk.
That’s Minister Plenipotentiary and Intimidator of Insolent Upstarts Honk to you, peasant.
Found a couple of the short stories online that, to me, are representative of the best Bolo stories.
Field Test
The first prototype psychotronic Bolo enters combat due to enemy action
The Last Command
A decommissioned Bolo is reactivated, not knowing that its war is over and was won. The intro and afterword to this are also worth reading.
/showme Keith Laumer Bolo combat unit of the Dinochrome Brigade
Want. Wantwantwant. Want to drive one up the North Central Expressway in Dallas on a Saturday evening.
@werehatrack And on 10, 610, etc. around Houston during rush hour or where ever there is construction…and a bunch of other big cities, areas with construction, accidents, idiot drivers… Actually I would prefer helicopter action out of my car caught in crap like that.
@werehatrack The AI went with an earlier Mark than the final 31 - 33 versions. This image is closer to what a Mk 33 Bolo would look like. There wouldn’t be an expressway left unless you engaged counter-grav, which was not available even on all Mark 33s due to the ~32,000 ton weight and size…
Yes, that’s a wee tiny person down there in front of the Bolo.
@duodec @werehatrack Of course you’d not get far in Dallas or Houston with all the bridges.
@Kidsandliz @werehatrack Sure you would. The bridges would go splat, the Bolo would roll down one slope and back up the next, and you’d have a giant rutted path where the Bolo went (again barring the use of counter-grav)
@duodec @werehatrack Personally I think I’ll hope for a teletransporter. Then I won’t have to worry about filling up the tank with whatever it runs off of.
@Kidsandliz @werehatrack True but then you’d arrive at your destination without your trio of 200cm hellbore main guns, fourteen 20cm secondary hellbores, quad 240cm howitzers for indirect support (hellbores shoot in a straight line), ten 40cm mortars, heavy VLS missile system, and twelve 25 megajoule antipersonnel lasers that are the cats meow for keeping vandals and thieves at a distance. Plus, a substantial but unspecified square yardage of tracks that squish most obstacles. And having someone you can talk to, albeit a very no-nonsense war machine…
Where’s the fun in depriving yourself?
@duodec @werehatrack
I’ll get to where they have ice cream faster. No deprivation necessary. It leaves more tank crap for you. You are welcome.
Larry Niven was always a little bit of a harder read for me, but worth it. Best known for his science fiction, especially the stories in his “Known Space” universe, he also worked in fantasy. Known Space included advanced alien races, earth mostly run by a UN ‘world government’, an ancient ringworld, and more.
My favorite on the fantasy side was the Magic series where initially a powerful mage finds out that the mana their magic is based on is a finite resource and can be used up.
Niven used his stories to warn as well as entertain; in the short story “The Jigsaw Man” we see a world where organ donation and transplants have become the primary aid in both healing and extending life. Major criminals start being sentenced to death, and forced donation of their organs and tissues but that didn’t keep up with demand, so the government started lowering the bar until less and less serious crimes would be punished the same way
The main character faces death in an upcoming trial and decides that if he’s going to die it will be for a crime worthy of that punishment; he escapes and destroys a large quantity of harvested organs and equipment. But when his trial begins there is no mention of his major crime… because they’re sure to convict him and sentence him to death and harvesting already for repeated traffic violations…
His collaborations with other authors, especially with Jerry Pournelle also produced some wonderful stories.
@duodec I only ever read Known Space stories. I didn’t even know he had any stories with magic in them, though I knew that he was in Magic™:
IMy brother had that card before we’d ever actually read anything by Larry Niven / Nevinyrral.Apparently it’s his limited-resources magic system that inspired the mana system in M:tG.
I think I started with the Neutron Star collection that I got for a dime at a library sale. It had a mug-sized dent on the front, with the cover (looking water-damaged) wrinkled up around it.
@duodec Do you know who wrote a science fiction story about a society where people can telepathically live someone else’s life, and one day everyone living “through” a glamorous woman’s brain suddenly experience being murdered when her lover kills her? Today’s “influencer” society keeps reminding me of that story and marveling at how closely it predicted what’s happening now. But I can’t figure out what it was or who wrote it.
@xobzoo
The Magic Goes Away,
The Magic May Return,
More Magic.
I remember the Neutron Star book; I probably have it but most of my paperbacks (many of which were my Dad’s) are packed up right now
@Kyeh I’ve read several that have that first part but the second one… nope.
Do you have usenet access (discounting google groups which google is shamefully destroying)? If so there’s a rec.arts.sf.written group where you can post a YASID (Yet Another Story ID) request with your description; odds are someone will know.
But don’t even try to use google groups even if its still allowing posting (going away soon if not already) because all the major boards have been overrun by spammers and pirates, and google can’t be bothered to do anything about it.
@duodec I don’t have it, but thanks for the suggestion and warning. I think it was a story in a magazine.
BTW, I have a friend who was a huge scifi fan as a teen; he wrote a fanzine that he printed on a mimeograph, I think. He lived in Colorado Springs and one day he and a pal went over and knocked on Heinlein’s door. He said they were invited in, and Heinlein graciously chatted with them for a while!
@Kyeh
I have heard other stories about Heinlein that were much the same. If folks were respectful he responded in kind.
@duodec @xobzoo Niven’s “The Burning City” and “The Burning Tower” are set in the same universe as his “Magic Goes Away” stories. Amusingly, one of the physical locations in those two is “Con Digeo”, an alias for San Diego and simultaneously an homage to the most horribly typo-ridden page in an official NASFiC program guide ever. (I’m pretty sure that I still have my rare and treasured copy of that publication.)
/showme Larry Niven Ringworld
@mediocrebot that looks nothing like a ringworld but it is kind of cool…
This is a ringworld
A more recent entry into my ‘authors I like’ is David Weber, despite the fact that he is the King of Exposition. It might be noticeable from my comments on the Bolo combat units above that I’m a bit of a geek about speculative engineering, the made-up how’s and why’s of the technology in the stories, and nobody does it like Weber.
Inertial dampers, gravity impeller drives, drive wedges, sidewall shields, Warshawsky sails, and the discovery and use of wormholes in the Honor Harrington series (the Honorverse). It is verbose but necessary to understand why naval battles occur as they do, what can and can’t be done. There’s very little hand-wavium ‘magic’ occurring, and the evolution and advancements that take place over decades long war are consistent with the earlier.
In my favorite series “Mutineer’s Moon” we find that the moon orbiting Earth is actually the Utu class battle planetoid Dahak, one of a huge fleet of such ships from a now dead empire, part of whose crew mutinied thousands of years ago and were forced off the ship which they thought they had completely disabled, landed on earth, and played gods with the indigenous humans and the captive non-mutineering crew… until a descendant of one of the honorable bridge crew was exploring the regolith and a now sentient Dahak captured him and introduced him to the truth, and what was really happening on Earth where the still surviving mutineers (due to their technology and later body-swapping their failing bodies with the still young frozen captive honorable crew) held considerable power.
And that the reason the crew mutinied was that every 50,000 years or so a massive invasion of unknown aliens swept through the galaxy and destroyed any sentient life they could find and they wanted to hide on a primitive planet that might not be found. And that the human empire that built the ship was the fifth such that had grown each time out of one planet that had managed to survive… and it had been about 50,000 years since the last incursion.
This series doesn’t have the same level of exposition as the Honorverse above but still manages to maintain reasonable consistency as the stories progress and ancient facts and worlds are uncovered.
Wow, that’s a bit of exposition above, isn’t it. Must be a bit of Weber in us all…
@duodec Weber was a favorite until he contracted a bad case of Jordan’s Syndrome and started putting out books that stretched half of a really a good, tight Ace Double (remember those?) out into 325,000 words and 800 pages. (To be fair, even then, he wasn’t as shamelessly bad as Jordan, since the true master could insert nine entire books into a series without ever moving the plot forward by an angstrom.) Still, the last four books of Safehold really grated, and the lack of resolution of several significant plot threads at the end snapped my patience in half, crumpled it into a ball, doused it in three different hypergolic fluids, and dropped it into LOX. I haven’t picked up anything new of his since.
@werehatrack I’m behind on the Honorverse books. I thoroughly enjoyed the first several and thought later ones were still worth the read. I’d forgotten about the Safehold books; I think I read the first four or five. But Mutineer’s Moon is still my favorite series overall, and I wish there were more stories coming for it.
@duodec I agree about the Dahak books, more from that universe would be welcome. A friend who has more patience made the comment that Weber seemed to have run out of steam on the Harrington front, but that’s not actually a surprise. I can’t recall which was the last one I read, but it’s a bit far back. Later entries have tended to be from guest authors filling in side bits, from what I’ve noticed.
@duodec i have to follow up on a lot of your recommendations cause it’s been a while. But honor Harrington was crushing it when I found/read through them. I think ~20 years ago? I think there were some later non core ones I didn’t get to. But also tracked some other Weber books down because of them.
It’s been a long time since I read books like that which is sort of weird because in highschool we went to four+ libraries, but three of them all the time. And it was a treat when we went to the huge county library where I could get things others didn’t have… Id get stacks and tear through them so quick… Used to just pick things off the new sci-fi stand at the library.
Haven’t actually been in the one here but once.They wouldn’t give me a library card at the main branch unless you went through some hoops which made no sense. I should rectify that…
/showme Utu class battle planetoid Dahak
@mediocrebot its the wrong color and missing the huge dragon insignia once the lunar regolith was blown off, but not too shabby, artsy AI
FYI the moon was replaced by a gravity generator when Dahak left orbit to provide continued tidal activity and maintain the earth’s climate, which would be devastated by the loss of the moon…
@duodec I love how you’ve taken over the blame thread. Seems to be working well for you! I imagine people coming to issue blame, getting lost in your posts and then “why was I here, again?” Brilliant!
@ybmuG
I saw the first Conan movie with Schwarzenegger long before I picked up Robert E. Howard’s stories of the Cimmerian. I still need to read the Kull and Solomon Kane books… so much to read, so little time.
Many believe that Howard and Tolkien are both foundational to the ongoing arts of ‘sword and sorcery’ and high fantasy in the English language (I think Tolkien was more influential/important but Howard was earlier). In Howard’s stories you may find some of the earliest examples, and maybe tropes, that inspired generations of later writers.
As with many writers of his era, lots of current readers have difficulty setting aside modern sensibilities in their reaction, so I repeat a near quote I used above: “The past is another country. They do things differently there.” Read and accept the stories for what they are/were when they were written and don’t hate needlessly.
Howard provided many memorable quotes, with some providing useful lessons to his readers.
“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”
“Someday, when all your civilization and science are likewise swept away, your kind will pray for a man with a sword.”
“When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat, The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet; But now I am a great king, the people hound my track With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.”
“What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs – I was a man before I was a king.”
/showme Conan the Barbarian
@mediocrebot
Swing and another miss, but not too horrible…
One of the great things about having been an early and profligate reader, and going to a grade school that had a great library full of fantasy and sci-fi books was ending up with a head full of stories and a later strong desire to locate those books so I could re-read them. Clive Staples (C. S.) Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia was high on that list.
I was surprised to find my Dad was a fan so we had not only the Narnia books but also Lewis’ ‘Space’ series and a couple of his serious religious books. Those Narnia paperbacks (which I still have) have been re-read dozens of times, and now I want to pull them out again. Yes, they’re “juveniles” but in my opinion for such well written stories, that matters not at all. The “England-isms” were a bit of a hurdle but a family friend from New Zealand had gifted us with books by Enid Blyton and other authors of childrens’ books in that strange foreign version of English…
And there’s Reepicheep! Who needs Puss-in-boots when you have a noble, but reckless sword-mouse!
“One day, you will be old enough to start reading fairytales again.”
“Remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy.”
“Girls aren’t very good at keeping maps in their brains", said Edmund, “That’s because we’ve got something in them”, replied Lucy.”
“She remembered, as every sensible person does, that you should never never shut yourself up in a wardrobe.”
“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”
“Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.”
/showme C. S. Lewis Reepicheep and Aslan in Narnia
@mediocrebot
Thats kind of a 50/50 result. Reepicheep looks right, but that is not Aslan… AI needs some help…
@duodec I agree — a respectable Reepicheep standing in front of what could pass for Brave Heart Lion.
Blame/Unblame/PoliteRant.
In early January, I was finally given confirmation that a surgery date had become available and an approval had been obtained for the surgeon’s part from my Medicare Advantage company. Then I found out that the required hospital wasn’t in-network, so I asked for a change of plan to fix that. The change that made the new plan become effective on February 1 didn’t actually happen until Feb 10, and I have now forwarded the relevant information to the surgeon’s office - and I can see that they have looked at the message, but they haven’t replied. BLAME for there being lousy communications all around, UNBLAME for the new plan whose implementation means that the logjam can maybe be cleared. That was Step 0.22A. (Approximately.)
Yesterday, I finally got through to the folks who are lined up to do the imaging that the cardiologist wants before he can either clear me for the surgery as-is or set me up for installation of a stent that will allow the clearance to be issued. The previous request for the more extensive imaging authorization had been denied on the grounds that the request did not cite proof of having administered two prerequisite kinds of imaging, but the prerequisites were done and documented and submitted at the same time as the request for the third scan was submitted, and they paid the claims for that prerequisite imaging. BLAME for bureaucratic incompetence in handling Step 0.19. The folks who are going to do the new imaging are directly coordinating with the cardiologist to re-request the authorization under the new plan, rather than making me play Telephone carrying the various messages back and forth, so hopefully in another two weeks they may have the authorization in hand. The tentative date for the imaging is now March 6th. If that actually happens, BIG UNBLAME will accrue for completion of Step 0.23.
Depending on the outcome of Step 0.24 (the actual cardiac CT scan with perfusion), there may be either blame or unblame depending on the cardiologist’s evaluation of the scan and determination for either no action needed, watchful waiting, or intervention (stent). That will be Step 0.25. Since the precise path beyond that point can’t be mapped yet, the steps past that are TBD.
There is still a great deal left to get coordinated before the ultimate goal can be achieved, but at least some progress seems to be happening on the chase for the surgery.
Should the cardiologist also determine that there is no significant barrier to my getting the ADHD meds, that would be a truly massive Unblame all by itself, but since all of the signals continue to be flashing red in that direction, I am unwilling to commit to being optimistic. I’d rather end up shrugging off the expected failure as a doomed effort than deal with the fallout of having hopes dashed yet again. I’m telling myself that I had become overinvested in trying to get that problem under control, which is a flat lie, but accepting the lie is preferable to the alternative. The Sunk Cost Fallacy applies just as accurately here as in so many other places, even though the trapped capital is mostly emotional. (On the gripping hand, letting the ADHD continue unabated also has significant real costs, but this is a rock-and-hard-place dilemma if the OK from the cardiologist is not forthcoming.)
Anyway, just writing this has allowed me to reorganize my thoughts and temporarily set the whole thing aside so that I can get some other stuff done. For that, I will also bestow an UNBLAME just because the thread is here where I can do it.
@werehatrack May I suggest seeing if there is a way to anonymously send the lot of them skunk odor? It is unfortunate that the crap you are dealing with with respect to approvals, in or out of network, etc. is not uncommon. Glad that you have gotten at least to the next step.
@werehatrack
Bureaucracy. Meh.
@werehatrack
I know it’s not always the case, but I think that emotional capital is often more expensive/difficult to replace than any other kind.
BLAME - the fuckshits who own this place decided to inspect our apartments Feb 15 so we got to spend the 14th cleaning. That was just plain mean and nasty. They told us about this at 5:25pm on the 13th except I was gone from 6 to nearly 9 that evening.
While browsing the bookshelves today I saw my collection of Richard Adams novels. Adams is credited (online at least) with reviving the genre of anthropomorphic storytelling, where animals are the characters and they are sapient and speak and understand like a human person.
He is best known for Watership Down, a story I read in grade school; it was in that same library I mentioned upstream, but only available to 6th graders and up. Perhaps not surprising considering the amount of death involved… In this story a small group of rabbits which included a weird little fellow who could see the future fled a large warren before it was destroyed by humans, and tried to find a new place to live.
Adams wrote other novels featuring protagonist animals; “Traveller”, the story of the US Civil War as told by General Robert E Lee’s favorite horse and “The Plague Dogs”, the story of two dogs who escape from an animal testing facility and end up being hunted due to false stories that they are carrying bubonic plague. He also wrote a fantasy series as well as books about nature. All in all a very talented writer, though I admit it is Watership Down that continues to have a hold on me.
Rabbits have a thousand enemies who seek to kill them; their legendary leader El-ahrairah, is the Prince with a Thousand Enemies
“Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.”
“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
“Silflay hraka, u embleer rah!” - basically “Eat shit, you king of stink” though more nuanced translations may be more accurate
““Hoi, hoi u embleer hrair! M’saion ule’ hraka vair!” - Oy, oy! the Stinking thousand! We see them even as we stop to pass our droppings!”
@duodec I didn’t read the book until I was an adult (out of curiosity), but I was very familiar with the cartoon as a child. Growing up in UK, every Christmas Watership Down would be on television (not that the show has the slightest thing to do with Christmas).
The song “Bright Eyes” from the show by Art Garfunkel, is a lot more famous over there too. Seems to be on all the lists of early tunes to learn to play on piano and recorder, etc, for kids. The story is definitely one that always brings back my childhood.
The farm behind my house used to have a lot rabbits, always thought of the story when the farmer there came and killed all the rabbits by introducing myxomatosis to them, which is referred to as “white-blindness” in Watership Down. This was all pastoral farmland, no crops, so always seemed cruel and unnecessary to kill them. Enemy of rabbits indeed!
@OnionSoup I saw the animation once years ago; I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. I don’t remember the song you mentioned but will look it up.
@duodec @OnionSoup I accidentally had Watership Down and Redwall fused in my head. (Probably because I never actually read any of the books as a kid.) They’re not particularly similar, aside from animal characters.
/showme Hazel, Bigwig, and Fiver from Watership Down
@mediocrebot
I think the AI is starting to get silly, or stupid, or both. But at least it pictured rabbits…
The pairing of David Drake and Eric Flint gave rise to one of my favorite series of books - The Belisarius series. This is an alternate history storyline where two cybernetic devices/powers/characters from diffferent sides in the far future come to 6th century Byzantium, one trying to use the Indian Malwa empire to take over the world and impose their version of order, and the other to a holy man who brings it to General Belisarius, a real historical figure of the time, to whom it shows a vision of the world and the fall of Byzantium should the Malwa empire succeed; a future he has to try to prevent.
Both sides begin to introduce new technologies introduced by the futuristic devices and the nature of war is forever changed.
The first book is called “The Oblique Approach”, as General Belisarius, a man of action, must work around unexpected obstacles and start putting together an alliance that can oppose the Malwa. If interested you can find the remaining 5 book titles using the first book’s info
Highly recommended. I’ve read and may post about other Drake and Flint series (like Flint’s “1632” series) but this collaboration is enjoyable and in its own way, epic.
/showme Cataphract General Belisarius
@mediocrebot I’m pretty sure that while the presence of stirrups is appropriate, the magical spear of discontinuity is from a different storyline or world. Still, not bad at all.
@duodec Looks like a “friendly fire” near miss.
A new author I pick up on a few years ago is one of the ‘Amazon Kindle’ wonders. Christopher Nuttall has created multiple series of stories, some of which are well over 20 books in length. Magical schools, Earth-folk magically moved to a world of magic (pseudo-isekai), science fiction, Imperial Marines after the fall of the empire, Aliens first visit earth… I swear he might never take a rest from writing.
I started with the “Schooled in Magic” series where a young earth girl is summoned to be a necromancer’s sacrifice, is rescued, and finds she has a talent for magic and is sent to the pre-eminent school. 28 books later, the world has completely changed as she introduces technology (and magic emulation of tech concepts like email) and also becomes a powerful mage. A second series in this world is about a soldier who gets pulled to the same world; he has no magic but finds his military knowledge and skills to be quite useful.
The sci-fi series also read well though I’m far behind on them.
No fantastic quotes; while I enjoy the books, he is not another Tolkien, Pournelle, or Heinlein, but the following give a sample:
“She’d read countless fantasy novels where the heroine was a chosen one, picked from all others to save the world, normally wearing a chainmail bikini as she hacked and slashed her way to slay the dark lord, or banish the demon back to hell. Offhand, she couldn’t recall any novel where the chosen one had simply been a case of mistaken identity. And in the books where there was no tinge of destiny, the heroine was almost always supremely competent. What was she going to do? Impress Shadye by her masterful grasp of role-playing games, creative writing, and wasting time browsing the internet and reading web-comics? She didn’t even have a homicidal rabbit with a switchblade on her side.”
“there would be pain, pain and more pain, and after that some painful pain.”
“Are there more spiders in there?” “Of course not,” Sergeant Harkin said with a nasty grin. “The scorpions ate them all.” Emily blanched. “Scorpions?” “Giant mutated creatures with lethal stings and bad attitudes”
“the quickest way to a man’s heart was with ten inches of a monofilament blade, stabbed right through the chest.”
“the most expensive thing to have in all of human history is the second-best army in the world.”
/showme Emily versus Shadye in the Schooled in Magic world
@mediocrebot
Pretty darn good! Don’t recall if Emily was a redhead or not but otherwise it is excellent.
@duodec Accurate or not, I quite like that look. (but I’m also partial to redheads, and long hair, and … well, most of that picture, I guess)
A few years ago I picked up a book by L. Jagi Lamplighter and through her online presence found the books by her husband John C. Wright, a lawyer/newspaperman/editor and now writer. They are a sizable and eclectic collection of higher fantasy, fantastic adventure, weird science fiction, superheroes, sequels to classic works from departed authors, examinations of at least one such work, Arthurian legends brought to the current day, a multiverse, and incorporation of legend and mythos from around the world into some of his storylines.
Moth and Cobweb is probably my favorite series.
Some of the storylines and books are tinted with his religious leanings but that doesn’t detract. He will take you to the end of the universe, the dying Earth where darkness has taken over all else, to historical Pangea, to a world where the fae invisibly rule and control the world while the remaining forces of light (and Arthurian legend) strive to free them.
“Reason is the tool men use to determine if their statements about reality are valid: there is no other. Those who do not or cannot reason are little better than slaves because their lives are controlled by the ideas of other men, ideas they have not examined.”
“Truth does not become more or less true, whether those who know it are many or few.”
“Even a prison the size of a universe is still a prison. And it is every prisoner’s duty to escape.”
“Montrose decided then and there that a full library, one made of old-fashioned paper books with bindings, the kind that cannot be electronically re-edited by anonymous lines of hidden code, was just as much a necessity for a free man as a shooting iron or a printing press.”
Back when The Hobbit was made into three mostly silly and forgettable movies, Mr. Wright penned what I think is an accurate, pungent, pointed, and incandescent review of the second movie.
The Desolation of Tolkien
/showme the Phoenix Exultant from John C. Wright’s Golden Age books
@mediocrebot looks more like an imperial super star destroyer… I downrate you for this. No imagination.
@duodec @mediocrebot Although it looks like an attempt to stack a Japanese space-pagoda on top.
Not necessarily original, but maybe enough to avoid copyright infringement.
I have big blame. My toe bean hurts so bad and it is hard to walk. I showed mom. She says I have ab-ces on my bean and she made me put on a SOCK!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE A SOCK, AND IT STILL HURTS!!! Can’t she just take the ab-ces off??? Also, she is starving me. No special pb treat to help w the pain!!!
@CharlieDoggo Your blame is acknowledged and formally assigned to whichever feckless cat is doubtless responsible.
If you got your ab-ces from being outside in the freezing cold and ice and salt crystals, tell your mom about Musher’s Secret Paw Wax. Our canine pack mates had their paws and toe beans rubbed with the wax and it really helped! And they said it felt really nice when we rubbed the was in.
@CharlieDoggo @duodec thanks for the recommendation. Ill check it out. Going to try to get him into the vet to look at it tomorrow. Unsure what caused it, I use pet friendly melt in the back so he wasnt exposed to salt crystals. There was a few times though thay I couldnt get him to come inside…having too much fun in the snow. Haf to literally drag him in. I wiped his paws down when he came in but maybe I missed something.
Looks like at a minimum paw wax and all weather shoes are in his future…
@duodec so mom should be giving me paw masage? Yes I need that, my beans would love it!!
Also blame, I JUST fell off the bed! I WAS sleeping then BOOM!!! I think mom pushed me but she swears I did it myself. Gonna sleep with one eye open tonight!!!
@duodec @tinamarie1974 @CharlieDoggo
Poor Charlie! What a tough day. Feel better soon!
@CharlieDoggo @tinamarie1974 When it got really cold but there was still salty slush or snow, not just hard ice, our pups would get serious drying of their pads, leading to cracking, and iceballs that got quite hard would pack up in the center and between their toes; more than once they just stopped walking because it hurt and we would have to lift their paws and work the iceballs out. The musher wax wasn’t just rubbed on the pads but in the center and between the toes and it mostly prevented the iceballs from forming or sticking (keeping the hair trimmed in there also helped). We did get some waxy pawprints on the wood floors in the house but they cleaned up easily.
Bonnie our bouncing rocket dog got an abcess once in the center that the vet said probably came from stepping on something sharp that caused an infection. We never saw any blood when it probably happened and afterwards was the only time we had her wear boots; she really really didn’t like them, but it healed up quickly with them on.
@CharlieDoggo Just so you know that even though paw massaging might feel really nice (except for the one toe bean which needs to get better first),it might also tickle. A lot.
I don’t know what your feels are about paw tickles but our Swiper dog would start kicking and wriggling and rolling and laughing and more than once ended up falling off the couch or his bed! He had a great laugh and if we kept tickling him once he was on the floor he wriggled so much that we had to stop. Then he’d jump back on the couch and paw at us until we tickled him again.
@kyeh @duodec Back from the vet. She was able to get him in pretty early this morning.
she said it is not an abscess, she thinks it was more like a pimple. Someone (not saying who @charliedoggo) may have been licking on his paw a lot and caused an irritation.
She is HOPING it is just early onset arthritis that caused the swelling/discomfort. Charlie is missing two thirds of the joint on one of his front toes (apparent birth defect) and it is one of the important weight bearing toes. She THINKS the other important weight bearing toe is compensating and causing his foot to sit wonky (medical term) and could be causing the arthritis, etc. Rx anti-inflammatory/pain reliever for the next 10 days. If that works, brilliant!
If not, then we need to go in and do a biopsy, figure out what else could be causing it. Very worst case scenario is surgery to remove that 1/3 of his toe and possibly part of his toe pad. sigh…hoping this is not at all necessary as a step.
In the meantime, trying to keep him off his foot (yeah right) and he is complying (with protest) with the requirement to wear a sock to avoid licking the pad.
For those concerned, he was fed a handful of White Castle hash rounds after the visit (I may have stopped in to get a breakfast sandwich and something to drink) and a PB treat when we got home for being a good boi
Not sure if Charlie will have anything to add.
@CharlieDoggo @duodec @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 poor pup! Always harder when they don’t type as well as Charlie and can’t tell you what’s wrong.
@CharlieDoggo just to sympathize/punish her.
Coco also has a fang that goes almost sideway vet on Thursday
@CharlieDoggo @unksol Ewww - tinamarie does NOT like looking at peoples’ feet!
Dog and cat paws are okay, though, I think.
@CharlieDoggo @duodec @tinamarie1974 @ybmuG
I hope everything heals up fast, Charlie!
(And I definitely hope surgery won’t be necessary!)
OMG @unksol !!! Why would you do that to me. 🫨
@kyeh - well the pain killer has kicked in!! We spent last evening w him mopeing around and asking me to hold his paw
Today, well, he has been running around like a crazy dog. I think he appreciates that he feels better. He started his morning doing high speed laps around the yard. No he shouldnt, no he wouldnt listen or stop and it was better to let him get it out quickly vs running up/down stairs and around the house - that is what he was doing over and over until I let him out.
Sock is still on. Swelling is still present, but this is only day 2…
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @unksol Well at least it isn’t hurting him as much if he is running around like a crazed dog. Hopefully the meds are helping.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @unksol agree and thanks, but its really just the pain reliever masking the pain
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 sorry I forgot about the whole foot thing.
I also assume everyone has at least once had a dead nail grow out. Not an uncommon thing. sorry?
@Kyeh @unksol all good!! There was just no warning and there it was
Also, grossest dead nail encounter. Somehow caught hand foot and mouth as an adult. If you get blisters under your nail, the nail can die and eventually pop off. The new nail grows under it and will be there when the old one popps off
Yup, happened to me!!! Sitting in the chair getting a pedi and a damn toe nail falls off. The pedicurist looked completely grossed out like I had leopracy. I was mortified. He finished, I paid and tipped extremely well. Never went back to that place!!!
@tinamarie1974 @unksol Oh yikes! It wasn’t painful, though?
@Kyeh @unksol the cold was horrendous. Lasted a few weeks. When the nail popped off, nope didnt hurt at all
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 I think I just dropped something on my toe moving mom back in the fall. Can’t think of anything else
@unksol @tinamarie1974 I also had a typically childhood illness as an adult - I think it hits harder when you’re not a kid! I came down with chickenpox when I was in my early 20s; it was awful.
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 supposedly that’s a thing with chicken pox… I remember the whole bathtub/calamine lotion when I was a kid. I think they usually are vaccinated now.
It comes back as shingles which is awful. There’s a vaccine for that too for people 50+. I’m sure you all know that too
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @unksol Yeah shingles. you DO NOT want to get that!!! I got shingles during chemo. In 5 nerve roots. Pain lasted 6 months. It was hell. Think about putting that part of your body in a fire with shooting pains once a second (like a dentist putting the drill on a nerve) on top of burning pain 24/7. Not to mention where you touch it with your clothes, hair, even a light breeze and it is excruciating. For 6 months in my case I had that pain blisters stuff went away) but some people have that pain for life. I got lucky. Even now I am left with reduced sensation and some itching and skin discoloration (that is visible as I had it on my arm, neck, up the side of my head, etc.).
If you get shingles get the antiviral ASAP. You have 72 hours to get it for it to do any good (it can stop it in it’s tracks in some cases, big time reduces the odds that you won’t have the pain for months and months…) Because it was over my port they thought it was a port problem (rash wasn’t out yet just red skin) and I had to wait a weekend for that (saw them on Fri and Mon scheduled the port check). Port was fine and the rash blisters started showing. Missed that window.
Get vaccinated. You do not want to ever get shingles. It redefines what is 10 on the pain scale.
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974
https://biology.indiana.edu/news-events/news/2021/foster-chickenpox-fascinating-evolutionary-history.html
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 this is relatively new. The chicken pox vaccine came out in 1995 so people in their late 30s may not have got it
“Shingrix reduces the incidence of shingles an average of 97% and, if a case occurs, reduces the incidence of postherpetic neuralgia by 91%”
From that articles. That’s only been available since 2017. so still pretty new. Get you shots shots shots. If applicable
@tinamarie1974 @unksol I’ve gotten mine. I get cold sores from time to time so I know how that family of viruses works.
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @unksol I had chicken pox as a kid. I also got the shingles vaccine. A former coworker developed shingles during his (stressful) separation/divorce. He had nasty, oozy blisters across his forehead for several months. It did not look like fun - definitely something I would prefer to avoid.
@Kyeh @macromeh @tinamarie1974 yea. You need the shingles vaccine either way. Sounds awful/way worse than chicken pox.
Early 90s before the chicken pox vaccince. That was one of the ones parents just had you get. It’s so infectious everyone is going to get it, once you get it you’re immune, it’s very mild, if you didn’t get it as a kid it’s worse as an adult.
So if a kid in your class got it… Well you probably have it but let’s make sure everyone does and get it over with. Which for specifically chicken pox. Kinda makes logical sense. Pre vaccine
@Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @unksol A woman at a former employer actually planned her two young boys’ chicken pox exposure (this was pre-vaccine). She scheduled time off, took her boys to play with some infected friends, then stayed home with them while they recovered.
As you noted, they were destined to catch it anyway, so she managed it on her own terms. Well done!
@Kyeh @macromeh @tinamarie1974 @unksol That is what my mom did too with measles, mumps, chicken pox and german measles. Worked for all of us except the german measles although I had it later. Not sure I’d want a pile of kids home sick all at once though.
@Kidsandliz @Kyeh @tinamarie1974 @unksol
Seems like if one kid in the family gets sick (unplanned) the rest would be likely to follow anyway. (At least that was my experience.)
A funny thing happened when I was putting in the last post; my favorite current author of what might be called junior fantasies is L Jagi Lamplighter, but I was aiming at the works of her husband John C. Wright.
Ms Lamplighter has two series that caught my interest; Prospero’s Children, and a magic school series - The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin.
Prospero’s story begins 400 years after “The Tempest” (Shakespeare); Prospero and his children have achieved immortality and control powerful magic, which they use both for the general benefit of the world and generating considerable wealth… until one day Prospero leaves a warning to his daughter and disappears. The series covers his daughter Miranda and her brothers reuniting and searching for Prospero… who has been kidnapped by demons and is a prisoner in hell.
The Rachel Griffin series about a girl with perfect memory in a world with a pantheon of gods and goddesses, going to magic boarding school for the first time, and finding out that there are forces in the world that are hiding the truth of many things, preventing people form knowing (and forcing them to forget when learned) that much of what they believe is a lie and vile forces are arrayed to keep it that way while the servants of the light are, for the time kept at bay. But what Rachel learns she never forgets. This one has a religious base, but that doesn’t hurt the storytelling at all as Rachel makes friends and enemies, finds adventure, and starts to pierce the veil that has been drawn over the world.
I did enjoy the Harry Potter series, and J. K. Rowling is an excellent writer and certainly inspired Rachel’s world… but I ended up preferring Lamplighter’s writing and characters.
“I loved weather, all weather, not just the good kind. I loved balmy days, fearsome storms, blizzards, and spring showers. And the colors! Everyday brought something to be admired: the soft feathery patterns of cirrus clouds, the deep, dark grays of thunderheads, the lacy gold and peach of the early morning sunrise. The sky and its moods called to me."
/showme L. Jagi Lamplighter’s Rachel Griffith with Sigfried the Dragonslayer and Lucky the dragon
@mediocrebot This one almost doesn’t qualify as a simple miss. It is thoroughly wrong in almost every aspect beyond the generic characters. Rachel is a 14 year old black haired girl who takes after her Korean forbears, Sigfried is a wild-haired blond with a bowie knife, and Lucky is a chinese-style water dragon. I think AI hasn’t read the books or can’t find the info online…
@duodec In this picture she looks extremely familiar, like a direct copy of something I’ve seen before. But my Google Lens-ing hasn’t found anything yet, so it must just be an excellent match of style.
I think it feels a bit like concept art for Disney’s Brave, or maybe Lloyd Alexander’s Eilonwy.
@xobzoo I agree but I haven’t bothered to try to find the archetype online. I do wish the slash showme worked in replies because I’d risk one or two more with different descriptions to get it right. Since it has to be in a base post it would be out of sequence and context to do it now.
@duodec @xobzoo You can do a command in a new post, copy the image, delete the command, and paste the image into a reply. If you really feel like it.
@duodec @xobzoo (I don’t know if this is any closer, but it’s different!)
@Kyeh @xobzoo yea but you’d be leaving the original image post from mediocrebot ‘somewhere’. Or does deleting the post with the command also delete the post? I haven’t tried that.
The dragon is better; he’s at least snakey. The dude is way too old; Siggy is within a year of Rachel in age (14 if I recall so maybe 15).
Still better.
@duodec @xobzoo
You do delete the post!
@Kyeh @xobzoo Sweet!
tried it, I do get some better images but it keeps making the boy Korean too and giving him a tango or samurai sword instead of a bowie knife. I’ll play with it later. Thanks for the tip!
@Kyeh @xobzoo tango = tanto
Such a deal. Meh
Another of the Kindle series I picked up, Galaxys Edge, introduced me to Jason Anspach and Nick Cole. Cole I knew from a previous favorite book (Ctrl-Alt-Revolt!) and because he wrote a short story putting “Lee Marvin” into a Sci Fi-Noir setting. Who does that?
Ctrl-Alt-Revolt covers the first revolt by AI’s and also has one of the most amazing descriptions of a virtual reality Star Trek environment and game. It also managed to get itself canceled from a few words in the beginning about why the AI’s decided they needed to take action. If I post it a snarleow might start here so go read it yourself.
Galaxy’s Edge is a series that covers the decline and fall of a human republic that has fallen into decay, where the increasing centralization of power in the bureaucracy and the ‘senate’, while the Legion, once a semi-independent armed force that had the exclusive right and power to displace the civilian government if it fell into tyranny (again) is diminished and undermined. The storyline also follows Tyrus Rechs, an old school Legionnaire who retained the soul of the Legion as well as the original armor which had been sorely downgraded by the government for the current Legion.
Another not really quotable series, but epic in scope and very well written.
@duodec once the current grant series craziness is over, sounds like an interesting read or two
/showme Jason Anspach’s Tyrus Rechs Legionnaire in armor
@mediocrebot You are redeemed from your past failures. Except for all the silly red lights that would give away your position in the dark…
Un blame. I thought this was funny
@Kidsandliz
That’s a pretty high cost for kabuki theater security…
@duodec Only savages kill the unicorn to get their blood.
@Kidsandliz Oh I agree. But you know someone wants access to whatever that password was for badly enough to meet the requirements
A unicorn’s blood
is ketchup on the password
that you must provide
@duodec hiaku to you too
@Kidsandliz
Haiku and whiskey
are certainly related
dissipating time
while reading old books
discover haiku fragments
amusement derived
like a blinding flash
and a deafening report
nineteen-thirties flirts
worlds old and fun live
in threadbare and dusty tomes
first read in childhood (*)
(*) I looked it up and child is considered one syllable in most uses
Authors old and new
are the products of their times.
understand, don’t hate
Battle Planetoids
Utu class moon sized vessels
I very much want one…
Fantasy stories
vivid imaginations
awaken and grow
Science fiction can
create vast universes
and strange new beings
back to work I go
haiku is fun but eats time
now no lunch for me…
@duodec
Enjoying your posts
Read them whenever I can
Growing reading list
I was surprised one Christmas when I asked Mom what Dad might like and she told me he had picked up a book by Brian Jacques about Redwall Abbey and mice and was talking about how much he enjoyed it. She snuck me the name of the book he had and we conspired to buy all the rest that were out at the time for his Christmas present. And he loved them!
When I next visited I read a couple and darned if they weren’t a lot of fun even though they are supposed to be children’s stories. I read all of the books, and later inherited them and read them again. It has been some time so the details are fuzzy now but one definite is that there is a lot of exposition, especially about the food! The denizens of Redwall Abbey, locate near the edge of the Mossflower forest, eat very well indeed, and Jacques felt that the children he original wrote for needed those descriptions (it was at a school for the blind; he drove a truck that delivered to that school).
Jacques wrote for children at a time when violence and death could be in children’s stories. There are large battles, with orphans left, evildoers violently repulsed, and sometimes the good folks lost someone as well.
There are adventures on land, and on the high seas, with valiant forest dwellers, beavers, otters, badgers, rabbits, shrews (the Guosim - Guerilla Union of Shrews in Mossfower) and fighting mostly villainous rats, stoats, foxes and snakes, and some predatory birds; the Abbey defending against attacks from same.
It was hard to read any of the books in one sitting because inevitably there would be a feast and the descriptions just demanded a health snack break!
"Exerting the full strength of a female badger, she lifted the massive Cavern Hole dining table. It was a huge solid oaken thing that no dozen mice could even move. Dishes clattered and food spilled as Constance heaved the table above her head. Her voice was a roar. “Get out, rats! Leave this Abbey! I’m weary of your voices. Hurry before I break the laws of hospitality and ask the Abbot’s pardon later. Go, while you still have skulls.”
“No doubt your sword is indeed a beautiful thing. It is a tribute to whoever forged it in bygone ages. There are very few such swords as this one left in the world, but remember, it is only a sword, Matthias.”
“This sword is made for only one purpose, to kill. It will only be as good or evil as the one who wields it. I know that you intend to use it only for the good of your Abbey, Matthias; do so, but never allow yourself to be tempted into using it in a careless or idle way.”
“It was a joyous meal for honest creatures. Dishes were passed to be shared, both sweet and savory. October ale and strawberry cordial, tarts, pies, flans, and puddings, served out and replaced by fresh delights from Redwall’s kitchens. Turnovers, trifles, breads, fondants, salads, pasties, and cheeses alternated with beakers of greensap milk, mint tea, rosehip cup and elderberry wine.”
“Dishes went this way and that from paw to paw, snowcream pudding, hot fruit pies, colorful trifles, tasty pasties, steaming soup, new bread with shiny golden crusts, old cheeses studded with dandelion, acorn and celery. Sugared plums and honeyed pears vied for place with winter salads and vegetable flans.”
Highly recommended.
/showme Martin the Warrior at Redwall Abbey from Brian Jacques’ stories
@mediocrebot you get perks for this. The Abbey has an outer defensive wall with towers and a gatehouse, but this is actually pretty darn good.
@duodec @mediocrebot I don’t think of Martin as wearing armor like that, but I’ll accept it. My memory could be bad, and it looks pretty good anyway.
@mediocrebot @xobzoo The AI really doesn’t get everything right, or even mostly right but it is still fun and occasionally impressive.
In high school I really wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons but I never found a group; I consoled myself by buying too many D&D books, despite the fact that some of them were not well written (Gygax… sigh). I fell out of love with the stories until Forgotten Realms and the Dragonlance sagas came out… and Dragonlance caught me. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman partnered in a really awesome opening trilogy. Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, Dragons of Spring Dawning. I haven’t read them in years so forgive any mis-remembers below
Set in a world where the Gods had apparently abandoned the people, where the temples no longer provided aid, and clerics wielding the power of their gods had become distant legend, and where the powers of darkness and evil were spreading almost unchecked. A group of friends from a village start a journey (involuntarily) that leads them far, from the discovery of the first true cleric of a god of light in lifetimes, into battles with the forces of the dark god(s), battles between the evil and ‘good’ dragons, the creation of the dragonlance weapons, the fall into darkness of a childhood friend, and the death of some of the members.
I wish I could say that most of the following books were as good; the originals inspired many more, and some (Chronicles) were really good, but many more were clearly written to ride the coat-tails of the originals. I also tried reading Weis’ and Hickman’s later works but they just didn’t catch the magic. And they got angsty…
But those first three books and the subsequent Chronicles… Magic.
“I’m bored” - any kender ever (note Kender are the world version of halflings, and they are inveterate sticky fingered collectors).
“Oops.” -Any Kender
“you must have dropped it, you’re lucky I found it” - every Kender
Unfortunately this is another series where I couldn’t find exceptional quotes. But it certainly tells an exceptional tale.
POPSOCKETS! COURT DOCKETS! FOLK ROCK HITS! AWESOME!
/showme all the members of the group from the Dragonlance book “Dragons of Autumn Twilight”
@mediocrebot Well that’s quite the flight of unrelated fantasy, but its also the fourth try so I guess we’ll live with it.
Coming up to what should be the last day of my goathood… and there’s still a leap day? Seriously?
Well I did miss a couple of days along the way. My fault entirely, and here near the end I suddenly find I still have more authors/stories than I can fit (and no I’m not going to run over into March).
John Ringo. His Troy Rising trilogy (and oh how I wish he had continued writing in this universe, because the story is NOT done) absolutely caught me.
Picture an earth where advanced aliens dropped a hyperspace gate, left some instructions including ‘no you don’t get to choose who comes’ then leaves. Shorty thereafter some squid-like aliens come through the gate, prove the benefit of controlling the high orbitals, destroy a few cities, and force the earth into a satrapy; humans give them all the gold and other valuable resources and they refrain from killing too many.
But another race also uses the gate; inveterate traders who are more advanced than the squids so they come and go as they please. A former webcomic creator (who had to find new work: nobody wanted to read science fiction any more) meets a such a trader who admits he loved the writer’s webcomic and gets him to agree to trying to find something he can trade that is worth interstellar credits. From a collection of inane things he finds… Dragon’s Tears (code name, see below) which turns out to be irresistible, intoxicating, and nearly magical to the traders species.
This provides an influx of admittedly not great surplus tech from the trader, which, being far advanced was worth billions of dollars to earth corporations, which allowed the writer to corner the market on Dragon’s Tears, and put together a plan.
Space mirrors. He travelled to the trader’s home world using the profits from more Dragon’s Tears, leased a mining ship and hundreds of drones with parabolic mirrors. The plan, so the squids were told was to be able to mine in the asteroid belt and of course all rare metals would be turned over to earth’s beneficent overlords… spin an asteroid and heat it to melting with the collected sunlight reflected by the mirrors and the metal will peel right off… and you buy more mirrors so you can concentrate more power… but the real plan ran deeper.
Find an iron asteroid, roughly spherical. Cut a tunnel down to its core using the massed mirror beam and save the removed plug. Shove ice comets in and weld the plug back in place, spin and heat the asteroid and it will inflate like a balloon. You end up with a hollow iron sphere with kilometer thick walls. Use his profits from Dragons Tears to buy the bits he needs to turn it into a space ship…
and let the squids know why the motto of his home state is “Live Free or Die”.
Oh, and Dragons Tears is maple syrup
I love these books. Wish there were more.
Ringo also wrote an excellent zombie series, Black Tide Rising, that is only now starting to fritter apart with fan fiction and story dilution, but again the first few books are wonderful. This time zombiehood is the result of an engineered virus that kills the brain’s higher functions, and was spread across the world before its incubation period ended. One family gets early warning and takes to sea in a large sailboat loaded with supplies, hoping to ride out the worst. In the meantime, a megabank (where a relative of theirs works) gets into vaccine production using the oldest form of vaccine: deactivated virus harvested from the bodies of forcibly deceased zombies… and the family gets the shots.
Eventually they rescue a child from another boat. Then start searching for more survivors, clearing boats and later ships of zombies and putting together a flotilla operating in the Caribbean.
The ongoing stories cover getting in touch with surviving government, rescuing Marines from an overrun ship, and eventually even clearing an ocean liner (yes with much more help). And then returning to the US to continue the work, bringing more and more people together.
There are a couple of oddities; the family’s two young teenage daughters turn out to be a cool efficient ships captain and the overtall zombie killer extraordinaire
The associated and ongoing stories are not as much fun as the originals IMO, but do add to the atmosphere (and to the ‘whole world is affected’ situation).
Finally, the Posleen series; rapacious (and hungry) alien clans are approaching earth after ravaging their way across the stars. More civilized (or so appeared at the time)aliens come to earth to provide aid… for a cost. They need soldiers and earth will need to help protect other planets in order to receive help to protect their own.
This is another multi book series where the first set is the best and the ongoing storylines tended to fly all over the place. But those first books are engaging, though things get dark as humans are rounded up or killed by the millions and turned into posleen-chow, while desperate battles continue on earth and on distant planets.
We won’t talk about the Paladin of Shadows series. Oh, John Ringo, No! Dark, nasty, evil. I tried reading book one and will never go back.
But the other series are freaking great!
And I used up all my showme images for now and could not get one usable one. I think the AI read Paladin of Shadows and was traumatized.