(1) Syfy offers a free viewing of the first episode of The Expanse — Episode 1: Dulcinea. (Also available on the Syfy Now App, Hulu, Amazon, Google Play, Vudu, iTunes, Playstation, Xbox, and Facebook.)
(2) Variety says additional episodes have been ordered for Rachel Bloom’s series and CW’s iZombie.
Freshman comedy “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” has landed five more episodes, bringing its first season total to 18, while “iZombie” has received an additional six-episode order, giving the second season a total of 19.
Audience for the Bloom series is growing slowly.
While the positively-reviewed “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” hasn’t gained much ratings traction, it has posted its best numbers to date in recent weeks. Paired with sophomore critical breakout “Jane the Virgin,” the six episodes averaged a 0.34 rating in 18-49 and about 1 million total viewers in Nielsen’s “live plus-3” estimates.
(3) Misty Massey tells about a live slushpile reading in “Getting What You Ask For” at Magical Words.
Many, many times I hear writers complain how much they hate getting form rejections from editors, because such things do nothing to help them understand why the editor didn’t want to buy their story. Editors don’t understand, they cry, that writers can’t fix stories if they aren’t told what went wrong in the first place. Some writers say editors are lazy, others think they’re cruel. For whatever reason, it’s always the editor’s fault.
A couple of years ago, David Coe approached Faith Hunter and me to present a panel called Live Action Slush. (For those who don’t know, the writers submit the first pages of their novels anonymously. A designated reader reads each page aloud, and the three of us listen as if we were slush editors, raising our hands when we reach a place that would cause us to stop reading and move on to the next submission. Once all three hands are up, the reading stops and we discuss what made us stop reading.) David had done such a panel at another con, to great acclaim, and wanted to bring it to ConCarolinas. We had two sessions, both standing room only. As far as we could tell, anyway. We were asked to present it at Congregate later that same summer, and since then we’ve offered it in various incarnations at any cons we attended.
Most of the time, the writers seemed happy to hear our suggestions, although once in a while we would run into a writer who just couldn’t handle the idea that their story wasn’t already perfect. You see, the point of Live Action Slush is to give the writers exactly what they’ve been complaining they never receive – a specific, clear reason for the turndown. Sometimes the problem is that nothing is happening by the time we reach the end of the first page. Sometimes the writer spends the entire first page describing the characters without giving the reader the slightest idea what the book’s about. Characters might be hideous stereotypes, or flat and wooden. There are tons of reasons, most of which are easily repaired once the writer knows what has happened. But there are some writers who really aren’t ready to hear what needs fixing. They’ve come to the workshop fully expecting that the panelists will declare their first page to be utter brilliance. Those are the writers who storm out of the room, instead of staying to listen to the critique of other writers under the same scrutiny. They go into the hallway and tell their friends how mean we were, how we don’t really know anything. Most important, they don’t make any changes.
(4) In an Absolute Write forum, Alessandra Kelley gives the context for a wisecrack James Frenkel made on a Windycon panel and asks “Is what I witnessed abusive behavior?”
There are a number of important questions that urgently need discussing if we are to have any sort of careful, agreeable, professional and accepting environment for our conventions.
Many people make thoughtless remarks or cruel witticisms or little jokes. Should people be more mindful of them?
Is it right to treat a category of people as inherently funny or insulting?
How much tolerance should there be for little jokes? At what point does laughing them away become aiding and abetting the marginalization of a segment of the community?
Should a person with a known history of abusive behavior be held to a higher standard than others? What about a person in a position of authority?
Should we not speak up when we see such behavior?
(5) Lucy Huntzinger reports that the Down Under Fan Fund will be receiving a $2,000 donation from Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon. The DUFF co-administrator said, “Thank you for supporting face to face encounters between international fandoms!”
(6) Today In History
- November 23, 1963 – Doctor Who begins on the BBC.
The first of a four-part pilot episode of the series aired on the BBC on this day in 1963. Titled “An Unearthly Child”, the story introduced the Doctor, the Tardis, and many other things that would become hallmarks of the program.
(7) Today’s Birthday Boys
- Born November 23, 1887 — Boris Karloff, birthname William Henry Pratt, in Camberwell, London, England.
- Born November 23, 1914 – Wilson “Bob” Tucker
(8) Early suggestions coming in for the 2016 Worldcon program…
WorldCon Panel Proposal: THE WRITING LIFE – 5 esteemed panelists sit, paralytically drunk, mumbling incoherently about the end of publishing
— Myke Cole (@MykeCole) November 23, 2015
@MykeCole I do that panel at every con, and also at my house
— a taction for the take-tack on the terror shank (@robertjbennett) November 23, 2015
(9) The Kickstarter for The Dark North – Volume 1, a premium coffee table art book with new stories from Scandinavia’s best illustrators and concept artists, is just fully financed, but it’s still possible to contribute.
Artist: Lukas Thelin
(10) “Being a Better Writer: Names” by Max Florschutz at Unusual Things has four good ideas for dealing with a fundamental sf writing challenge.
So, naming things. This is, as you might guess, a requested topic. And to be honest, I think it’s one worth talking about.
See, naming things can actually be pretty tricky. When creating a world from scratch, or even just a redesigned/repurposed version of our own world, often one of the first things a lot of young writers do is assign their characters, places, and things very interesting names. It’s kind of a trope by this point, but if I had to guess my prediction would be that to the new writer, the goal is to excitedly show you how fantastical their world is. So they don’t have people with names like Joe or Samantha. They have people with names like Krul’Qa’pin or something like that. And they live in the city of Byulnqualalaltipo! Aren’t those fantastic?
Well, in sense, sure. They’re also completely unpronounceable, for a start. And that is just the start.
See, there are a host of problems with names like this. The first being that they’re difficult for the reader to read, pronounce, and parse. They’re these very out there, fantastical names that are hard to make sense of, and the more of them a writer puts into his story, the harder it will be not only for the reader to keep interest, but to keep everything straight. Especially if the writer has gone and made a number of the names similar through conventions such as “I’ll stick apostrophe’s here and here and that’ll make a name.” And while it certainly might create names that look impressive, the truth is that a lot of “name creation techniques” that novice writers go for tend to create a whole host of problems like what we just discussed.
Okay, so this is writing that, if not bad, is certainly not good, clearly. But in order to avoid this trap, it’s worth understanding why it’s a trap in the first place. Why are writers doing this? What makes creating a multi-syllable name that defies typical English attractive?
(11) A dress worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, (which did not win the brackets, darn it) sold at auction for $1.56 million today.
The blue and white gingham dress, one of 10 thought to have been made for Garland in her role as Dorothy in the movie, was among the top items in the Bonham’s and Turner Classic Movies Hollywood memorabilia auction….
A year ago, the Cowardly Lion costume worn by actor Bert Lahr in the movie sold for almost $3.1 million at a Bonham’s auction.
(12) National Geographic reveals “An 80-Year-Old Prank Revealed, Hiding in the Periodic Table!”
You wouldn’t know it, because it’s hiding down there at the bottom of the periodic table of elements, but it’s a prank—something a five-year-old might do—and the guy who did it was one of the greatest chemists in America. It’s pure silliness, staring right at you, right where I’ve drawn my circle, at element 94.
(13) At Motherboard, “For the First Time Ever, Astronomers Have Observed the Birth of a Planet”:
The new research, published this week in Nature, provides hard evidence of a developing gas giant orbiting a young Sunlike star called LkCa 15, located 450 light years away in the constellation Taurus. What’s more, it appears as if at least two other giant bébés are also forming around the star, though only one was directly detected.
“No one has successfully and unambiguously detected a forming planet before,” said astronomer Kate Follette, a co-author on the study, in a statement. “There have always been alternate explanations, but in this case we’ve taken a direct picture, and it’s hard to dispute that.”
(14) Click at your own risk! From ScienceFiction.com – “Thanks To A Leaked Children’s Book We Have Some HUGE ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Spoilers!”
(15) “Steven Moffat Reveals the Nightmare Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special We Could Have Had” on io9.
But while those meetings went on, more and more actors publicly denied that they would be a part of the special, prompting growing discontent from Doctor Who fans—who didn’t realize that behind-the-scenes problems with the script, and a ticking clock, meant that Moffat very nearly had to scrape together a story with whatever actors he could find. Case in point? In one form or another, there was a story outline for “The Day of the Doctor” that featured no Doctors at all… only Jenna Coleman as Clara.
(16) A project known as “Justice League Dark” is inching closer to a greenlight. Joblo lists the front-running candidates to direct:
Things are heating up for DARK UNIVERSE, as casting rumors have been swirling around the past week and now we have word on who the studio is eyeing to direct the supernatural superhero tale. We’re told that BIG BAD WOLVES directing duo Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, as well as EVIL DEAD remake director Fede Alvarez are the top contenders to take the gig right now. Both sets of filmmakers have a strong grasp of the dark and macabre genre and would easily fill the shoes of Guillermo Del Toro, who left the film after turning in his screenplay and toiling with the studio over casting and scheduling. However, Del Toro’s script is said to be excellent and one of the main reasons that the studio is pushing to get JLD underway with a shooting start in early 2016.
Yahoo! says Dark Universe is expected to put the spotlight on some of the lesser-known heroes and villains of the DC Comics universe whose adventures typically involve magic or supernatural elements of some sort.
Among the characters rumored to have a role in the film are occult detective John Constantine, who was featured in a short-lived television series of his own recently, and Swamp Thing, a multimedia sensation who was the subject of two live-action movies, a live-action television series, and an animated series to go along with his long-running comic book series and other projects. The film will also reportedly feature the villain Anton Arcane, the antihero demon Etrigan, and the sorceress Zatanna, as well as Madame Xanadu and the body-swapping spirit Deadman.
(17) Ice Age 5 short: Scrat In Space!
[Thanks to Hampus Eckerman, Will R., JJ, John King Tarpinian, and Michael J. Walsh for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day RedWombat.]
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Mike: More than the one person remarked upon the comments pointing out suicide via bullying, including a certain kind of “joke”. Your summary of the commentary to that point missed several. ABOVE Milt Stevens’ comment about why people commit suicide is a specific example that well invalidates his assertions, and I only hope it was an accidental crosspost that meant he could give his answer.
Milt, this is probably feeling like a pile on, and I don’t think that is the intended effect, but I think trying to answer in brief is erasing nuance which might help. I don’t ask you to elaborate on your credentials, which might be highly personal, but I do suspect an answer at greater length and with more awareness this is not necessarily a topic on which all other people are speaking from abstract theory would help. And maybe go back to the stuff about jokes besides only their place as a suicidal trigger?
Mike: There was no “allegation that he didn’t know anything” prior to Milt’s statement about his experience. At the time that he said this—
—he wasn’t defending himself from anyone questioning his understanding of suicide, because he hadn’t said anything about suicide before. Rev. Bob brought that up, as one possible consequence of harassment. Milt saw no value in that point, and in order to dismiss it, he made an absurdly broad blanket statement about human behavior and justified it via his "extensive background."
I understand that you value politeness very highly, but even if you can call Milt's statement "civil" in its tone, I don't see it as civil in its attitude toward other commenters and certainly not "substantial." This is a subject that is very immediate and personal to many people (myself included), and it's not really possible to make statements like that without being inflammatory even if you don't use angry words.
Mike Glyer: I don’t think Milt is trying to trump in with his experience
I think that’s exactly what he was trying to do:
I’ve since looked up his “extensive experience” and given what I found, I am pretty shocked that he would claim to be an expert on the pyschological effects of “jokes” and on the causes of suicide — it seems to me to be hubris of the worst sort for someone who has never been a practicing psychiatrist or psychologist to make that sort of claim.
Ask Lexica pointed out, there are no doubt people here who are very au fait with the current psychological research on this topic. It is perfectly legitimate for them to object when something untrue is said.
Mike Glyer: he even challenged the implicit assumption of the question, leading a couple of you to tell him to shut up.
I didn’t tell him to shut up. I asked him to stop making untrue and hurtful statements. I’m wondering why you’re mischaracterizing what I actually said.
I realize that he’s your good friend and LASFSian of many, many years and that a desire to defend him is perfectly natural. But in this instance, the criticisms which have been voiced of the things he posted are very legitimate.
Like “wit’ch”? I googled to see if it justifies the apostrophe and found it’s quite the opposite – apparently it also contains “el’ves” and “og’res”.
@BigelowT Where did your production take place? My hometown wouldn’t have pronounced it “authentically” either. But watch the original cast performances on youtube (include a trailer with Al Capp in it!) to see how they pronounced it.
Back to the original topic: Yes, I think Frenkel’s comment was abusive and out of order, not just to homosexual and bisexual boys and men but also to heterosexual boys and men. Toxic masculinity is bad for all boys. It also just wasn’t very funny.
Why on earth, given the actions that lead to his WisCon ban, is Frenkel still being invited to conventions and put on panels?
@Bruce Baugh
I meant to ask earlier – I think you also sometimes have (physical) problems with consuming visual media? Did you find Man in the High Castle or The Expanse difficult in that respect? (Not answering is totally cool if you’re uncomfortable with it. No explanation necessary.)
Jamoche on November 24, 2015 at 9:34 pm said:
But I think many fantasy writers are using purely cosmetic apostrophes that have no actual linguistic function at all.
Like “wit’ch”? I googled to see if it justifies the apostrophe and found it’s quite the opposite – apparently it also contains “el’ves” and “og’res”.
Signifier of weird folk?
A notice for everyone, especially Meredith:
Diane Duane is offering 66% off all books at her ebook store. To obtain the discount, enter the code PREFRIDAY during the checkout process.
Meredith: To my pleasure, not much! Specifics….
Man in the High Castle does an outstanding job establishing that yes, something awful is happening here and then panning away. I would certainly warn away someone who doesn’t want to think about torture, or euthanasia via crematorium – actual Nazi stuff, that is. Partly it worked for me because it’s full bore Dickian humanist in outlook. The heroes don’t torture or murder, and everything in the presentation invites us to regard Nazi and Imperial evilness as, in fact, truly evil. That’s a big deal for my ability to handle it, turns out.
The Expanse: I wasn’t expecting the opening episode to have any trouble for me, and it doesn’t. The prologue bit renders the strange thing there very quickly, with no lingering, and there’s no personal violence yet. It may turn into trouble for me, but was fine. There is an interrogation scene that pushed near my limits but not over.
I’m guessing (and I’m just guessing) that he wasn’t “invited” to the convention. Most people on panels aren’t; they’re just people who have indicated to the concom that they are willing and able to talk about subject x. Given that he’s a professional editor, he’s a logical choice to be on such a panel. At least, if you somehow managed not to hear about the whole WisCon thing.
@Mike Glyer: “Milt Stevens unsuccessfully tried to josh his way past that rhetorical question:”
That was a joke? It just read straight (pun intended) anti-gay-male to me – either way, a bizarre attempt at that particular point, IMHO. Oh well.
BTW, “trump in” – even though it’s a card (bridge, to me) reference, Zelazny came to mind as well. 😉
Kendall: “Er, how do you pronounce “Qing”?”
The q (which if memory serves was borrowed in this use from Albanian spelling) is used for a ch sound with the tongue pushed very far forward, so that the tip of the tongue is just behind the upper front teeth. It’s close to the English ch in “cheer.” The other ch sound, written ch, is pronounced with the tongue bunched up further back and the tip of the tongue around the boundary between the hard and soft palates (starting out in the position English uses for t, then bunching the tongue back quickly). It’s pretty much the same position as the s in “sure” in American English. (The h in the combinations zh, ch, and sh actually serves to indicate that retroflexed or bunched-up pronunciation, contrasting with the very front position of j, q, and x, respectively. The aspiration is indicated by the other letter: j versus q and c versus z, respectively.)
JJ’s Diane Duane link reminded me I meant to post this earlier tonight. Ebook sales! Well, a couple of items on my to-check-out or to-buy list, which is why I’m aware (thanks to SF Signal, but you can go directly to your fave ebook vendor). I’m guessing these are U.S.-only.
1. The first two books in Helen Lowe’s “The Wall of Night” series are $0.99 on Amazon.com, iTMS (iTunes), Kobo, and probably others. Courtney Schafer (a fave author of mine) recommended these; she made them sound quite good, though obviously our tastes may differ. The first won the Gemmell Morningstar Award and the sequel was shortlisted for the Gemmell Legend (not sure how much folks trust the Gemmell to pick good works). These have DRM.
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2015/11/ebook-deal-snag-the-first-2-books-of-helen-lowes-wall-of-night-fantasy-series-for-only-0-99-each/
2. Zachary Jernigan’s No Return (sequel came out in July) is $1.99 on Amazon.com, iTMS (iTunes), and maybe others. Oddly, the publisher not only hasn’t updated the price on Kobo (publishers can be inconsistent about pricing across platforms), but their Kobo price is $21.59, WTF?! That’s even worse than their pricing for Raksura books. I think Night Shade Books is pretty clueless. As above, it has DRM. This has been on my list for quite some time; it sounds very weird and intriguging; anyone read it???
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2015/11/ebook-deal-get-no-return-by-zachary-jernigan-for-just-1-99/
@JJ
Ooo, thank you! Are there any you (or anyone else – feel free to jump in) would particularly recommend?
@Bruce Baugh
Thank you! That’s very helpful. I’ll give it a go then, should be fine so long as I take breaks.
@Cally
Ah, I see. Then I shall drop the invited bit and keep the panels bit – I have no idea why someone would think he was an appropriate option. No editor would be better than that editor.
Meredith, glad to help. I’ll update as need be.
I find this comment kind of strange. First, there are a lot of people around with mental illnesses or symptoms of them. Myself, I am a undiagnosed ADHD. Why wouldn’t they react to or be affected by being the butt of jokes? Why should their experience be discounted?
The other thing is that being affected by long time abuse (of which being the constant butt of jokes can be a part), can actually change the chemistry of the brain and cause mental illness. I have a friend who was mobbed during her whole highschool to the degree that she now has to eat pills to stabilize the chemistry to normal levels.
So the comment was strange. Very strange.
And frankly, it would seem the worst sort of hubris for someone who WAS a psychiatrist or psychologist to make such a claim. At least, not a good one. The study of the causes of suicide are intense and ongoing in the medical world; a search of Pubmed.gov on “suicide, etiology” turns up 21665 articles, many from this year. Narrow it down to “suicide, bullying,” you still get 227 journal articles. New insights are STILL coming, and so if any medical professional confidently said he had all suicide all figured out and it has categorically NOTHING to do with relentless mockery – I’d call that arrogant and unconvincing.
Hell, just take one article – but a seminal one that’s intrigued me for years – the coal gas story. In the 50’s Britain began replacing their deadly coal gas ovens (with which Sylvia Plath and many less famous people committed suicide) with less lethal natural gas. Instead of the ‘common-sense’ expected outcome – that is, suicides who intended to kill themselves with oven gas would simply switch methods – the suicide rates in Britain went down by a third, and STAYED there.
What happened? Did removing coal gas stoves cure the “mental illness and drug induced depression” that Milt touts as main causes of suicide in a third of its prospective suicides? Did the world pay more “attention” to them somehow without coal gas stoves around to distract them? Did the lack of coal stoves alleviate “the feeling of utter nothingness that makes them want to die,” in that many people?
Nonsense. The more credible conclusion is that all suicides have an element of the impulsive, and the easier it is to act on such an impulse (as you can with a handy lethal chamber in your own kitchen which can put you to death in 10 easy minutes) the more often people do, sometimes for impulsive reasons that might lose their force if people actually had enforced time and effort to think about them and reach a certain perspective about the breakup. Or the bullying. Or whatever the precipitant factor was. Which, IMO, leads factors that seem unimportant and transitory (like bullying) to assume an outsized influence on a decision to commit suicide.
IMO, no psychologist or psychiatrist can state with absolute certainty that s/he can rule out denigrating mockery as a precipitating factor in every suicide ever. No credentialling can cover such a statement, and when a person makes a sweeping statement of absolute knowledge about the motivation of ALL suicides, saying that “you don’t know that he doesn’t have that knowledge” is kind of like sternly rebuking us with, “How do you know he ISN’T God Almighty?”
…I shouldn’t Ambien and type…
Also, if his knowledge is more personal – if he is close to people who have been suicidal, or been suicidal himself (hey, I’ve been there too), I feel sympathy for that. But knowledge of those particular cases gives no basis for sweeping generalities about all of them – many of them undoubtedly far removed from one’s personal cases.
I type from 1534, where the ducking stool and the spinning chair are the highest tech in psychiatry treatment *shudder*
I’ve generally found that when someone says, “Just stop,” they don’t mean “Shut up”, but rather something that falls between, “You’re embarrassing yourself to a degree that’s becoming painful to the observers,” and, “Pretty soon that hole you’re digging is going to be too deep to climb out of, and it would be in everyone’s interests if you put aside the shovel”.
I don’t think Milt realized he was in the middle of a discussion about the real-world impact of gaybashing, and was probably surprised when his tangent on the abstract theory of the positive uses of humor turned to the very real and recent deaths of small children. I suspect he failed to notice the context in which he was exploring humor as positive force of “social criticism” that “destroys its object” was an adult using a convention panel to mock gay children, who have a high suicide rate because of bullying, and thus frequently actually are destroyed by the social criticism they receive in the form of mocking humor. It’s very common, and very human, to try to save face by doubling down or using nebulous personal authority to redirect the discussion when you find yourself in a conversation that wasn’t what you thought, defending implications that you made via tone-deafness rather than intent. Most of us have probably had that experience at least once or twice, and I suspect what I’m seeing is that pattern of saying increasingly strained and unfortunate things during escalating attempts to wrangle the conversation back to the one someone thought was going on. But it really is better to just put down the shovel and admit you didn’t think too closely about how the original context would reflect on your tangent, and it got away from you a little.
Question: Why do GamerGaters make death threats?
Answer: Because people would get all riled-up if they told jokes.
Yes, that might have been a good plan, but I already see it isn’t going to be adopted. *sigh*
And with the lack of social skills that comment implies, I do agree that you deserve all the criticism you receive.
Oh dear. Er… Favourite pancake topping, anyone? American (Scotch) or Crêpe, sweet or savoury.
Me: I’m always happy with the very traditional lemon and sugar, but I also like maple syrup or chocolate (preferably in chunks so it melts onto the hot pancake but still leaves little bumpy bits). I’ve never quite got along with savoury toppings, though I keep meaning to find one I like.
@Amoxtil
I thought that was a very thoughtful and generous comment.
Seriously this is your response to our comments? I feel like you are going out of your way to be hurtful at this point.
Joking about women getting rape and death threats isn’t funny. Women and their families have been driven from their homes. Careers have been destroyed. Many women who’ve been targeted have had to deal with a number of issues because men think it’s funny to either threaten us or get satisfaction out of scaring us and trying to destroy our lives using psychological terrorism.
Do you truly not care how many people you hurt with comments like this?
@Amoxtil, thank you. That was very thoughtful and well thought out.
I got nuthin’ on pancake toppings, but how ’bout those (insert favorite sports team here)?
Thanks for your articulate and insightful comment, Jayn, and for yours, Amoxtli. Those sorts of responses are one of the main reasons why I value the opportunity to participate in this community. 🙂
Amoxtli:
Exactly so.
Chocolate. I want chocolate on my pancakes. It’s 7089, and they won’t let me have chocolate on my pancakes.
Pancakes? The only thing acceptable is blueberry jam.
Sprinkled with white sugar and lemon juice.
Failing that, fried tomatoes and chilli, topped with crispy bacon and sour cream, sprinkled with finely chopped chives, served on a bed of baby spinach leaves.
Also I hadn’t realized that MG had obtained a pancake-delivery WordPress plug-in. This place just gets better and better. Do they come out of the USB port or do I need a 3D pancake printer?
I’m a Vermont maple syrup gal for what goes on my dairy-free pancakes.
I have a tendency to put enough dark chocolate topping on my pancakes that I wind up feeling sick for the next couple of hours (BUT SO WORTH IT)
Second best is bacon. Mmmmm, bacon….
Lemon & sugar, while weird to me, does work well.
Now that I think about it…
A 3D pancake printer could work. You need a nozzle on a head that could move in 3D. Pancake batter could be pumped to the nozzle in liquid form through a tube. The nozzle releases tiny blobs of pancake batter and just as the blob drips out of the tube a tiny infrared heat-lamp cooks the blob instantly forming a tiny spheroid of pancake.
3D structures could then be built up out of pancake spheroids.
Secondary nozzles would then add toppings.
Ha! And Jim Henley says we will never build a space civilization! Oh but we shall and it will be made of pancake!
Meredith,
I see there a couple of short stories that are free so if you want to try out Diane Duane before you buy they may be the best bet. The thing most people will be buying is the Wizard packs. I just realised I already have the first 6 in dead-tree but might buy them for my niece.
Even better with the 3D pancake maker would be to build in pockets of topping throughout the build. You could still do decorative designs on the top as well if you wanted, though.
Camestros Felapton: Now that I think about it… A 3D pancake printer could work. You need a nozzle on a head that could move in 3D. Pancake batter could be pumped to the nozzle in liquid form through a tube. The nozzle releases tiny blobs of pancake batter and just as the blob drips out of the tube a tiny infrared heat-lamp cooks the blob instantly forming a tiny spheroid of pancake. 3D structures could then be built up out of pancake spheroids. Secondary nozzles would then add toppings.
What an EPIC idea! I want the Bagel Edition: the secondary nozzles insert yummy extras like cinnamon and raisins or blueberries or garlic, and cream cheese.
Here in 1554, the pancake options are
– Nutella
– lemon juice & white sugar.
Accept no substitutes.
[makes Homer Simpson noises]
I have since looked it up and unfortunately we don’t have 770’s first patentable idea:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1853707494/pancakebot-the-worlds-first-pancake-printer
Not quite 3D though IMHO
I actually got angry with Wade and Giles the first time I took a class with a Chinese teacher and discovered what the apostrophes meant.
How stupid, how misleading, how counterintuitive!
As my teacher explained it, an apostrophe meant the letters were sounded as they were written, unvoiced. Otherwise they were sounded differently, voiced. So p’i was pronounced “pee” but pi was pronounced “bee”.
For example, the classic on brush painting, the “Pi Fa Chi”, with no apostrophes, is pronounced “Bee Vah Gee.”
It was simple, but impossible to figure out if you did not already know.
@jayn, @Amoxtli,
Fascinating and thoughtful comments, thank you.
Lemon juice and sugar is traditional on pancakes? Where would this be? I am intrigued.
I prefer butter and a light dusting of powdered sugar or real maple syrup, the low-grade, cheaper, very dark, very flavorful kind. Blueberry compote is also good, as is raspberry syrup.
I thought the apostrophe in Wade-Giles was supposed to represent aspiration, not lack of voicing. English typically contrasts voiceless aspirated stops with voiced unaspirated stops, while Chinese* contrasts voiceless aspirated stops with voiceless unaspirated stops. English speakers will differ among themselves as to how they perceive voiceless unaspirated stops, whether they perceive the lack of voice or the lack of aspiration as more important.
That isn’t to say pronouncing Wade-Giles p, p’, t, t’ as if they were English b, p, d, t isn’t more intelligible to Chinese speakers than pronouncing them as if they were English p, p, t, t.
Maybe our resident linguist can explain things better.
*For Chinese, I mean Mandarin and Cantonese. Apparently there are some dialects that have a three-way distinction between aspirated voiceless stops, unaspirated voiceless stops, and voiced stops.
Question: Why do GamerGaters make death threats?
It seems that you think you have a deep insight into their thinking. Is that because you are a GamerGater? Or are you just being a run-of-the-mill jackass?
@Peace
England for sure, possibly the UK in general. 🙂 That’s the standard topping, especially on Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday).
@Meredith:
I shall have to try them that way some time.
Are they buttered first? What sort of sugar is used?
@Amoxtil That was a very insightful and kindly comment; thank you.
@Meredith I grew up with frozen strawberries as a pancake topping. They came in little square tin-like-containers and were apparently partially cooked or something before being frozen, so that in their thawed form they were mushy and sweet and swimming in a syrup of their own innards (plus, I don’t doubt, a great deal of sugar.) We would thaw them in a bowl of hot water from the tap, but we were often too impatient to let them thaw completely, which was fine because the little clumps of frozen-ness helped cool down the hot pancakes.
As an adult I discovered the joys of butter, soy sauce and brewer’s yeast (in the flakes meant for eating.)
I’d never heard of lemon juice and sugar except on David Eyre pancakes which were a special kind of pancake that was a good deal more effort to make (a lot more eggy, and it puffed up very tall.) It hadn’t occurred to me to try that on regular pancakes.
@Peace Is My Middle Name: Yes, maple syrup is another good choice. I also like the more flavorful grades, so it’s nice (if somewhat counterintuitive) that they’re cheaper. And Mom made huckleberry syrup a few times and that was wonderful also.
@ Soon Lee Oh, Nutella also sounds very nice. I think we may have pancakes for dinner soon.
*wipes drool from chin*
I personally don’t buy premium services. If it isn’t freely available or on the very most basic of basic cable, I either torrent it, wait for the DVD, or just never watch it at all. (I’m the same way with movies–I haven’t set foot in a theater in more than 20 years.) For most things, I go with the “never watch it at all” option. I’m curious about things like the extra seasons of Community and Arrested Development, and premium-cable and streaming shows that get lots of buzz, but it isn’t like (much like Rev. Bob) I don’t have plenty of other media to occupy my time.
@Peace
No butter, just lemon juice (freshly squeezed is better) and caster sugar (Google says that’s ‘superfine’ in the USA); the ratio depends on taste. The pancakes are closer to a French crêpe than American-style – thin and floppy. Flour, milk, and eggs – and if you’re really lazy like me you add some melted butter to the batter because that way you don’t have to keep greasing the pan… 😉 Oh, and post-topping people often roll them up before eating them, but you can do it another way if you want to. I’m not sure if the same topping would work on American-style pancakes because I don’t really eat those very often.
This is a good point, too I have at least 2 DVDs on my shelves that have officially been disappeared from sale. The Devil’s Advocate, disapeared because an artist thought an effect in the movie was too similar to his work (re-released with the art blurred out) and Little Shop of Horrors, disappeared because a director or someone didn’t like an alternate ending included as a bonus feature (eventually re-released without it.) If those were streamed, I would no longer have access to the originals.
The problem is that as the number and variety of people exposed to what you say increases, the chance that something you say offends someone, somewhere approaches 100%. Interacting with a large audience reminds me of the fable of The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey (and Rick Nelson’s song Garden Party.)
I reserve the right to look carefully at something I said and say “you’re right, I didn’t think about it that way, I’ll try not to do it again.” But I also reserve the right to carefully look at something I said, decide I was right all along, and say “go screw yourself you nitwit flake.” Nobody is owed a right to not be offended.
Honestly? Having been bullied in high school myself, whenever I see or hear someone say very emphatically that no one ever killed themselves after being joked about, my immediate reaction is to wonder who the speaker knew that killed themself after being joked about, and how much of the joking the speaker did.
In a semi-related note: if I’m using the Stylish filter to gray out comments by obnoxious people, how do I add someone to the bozo list?