There are few women here partly because the students are CompSci students (D = Datateknik)
For some reason women doesn't seem as easily attracted to computers as men.. *shrugs*
Imagine this: you sit in a long flight from China to Europe, trying to concentrate on a math textbook when the white 40-50ish woman behind you suddenly puts her feet on your armrest - so far in that they actually push your arm..
I was like WTF? and tried to politely push it back.. the foot vanished for some minutes, but far too soon it was back and again pushing way deep into my space. The pushing game went on for a few turns.. I tried to politely but sternly stare her into submission, but no go - she was just babbling something with her adjacent passengers. As I'm a bit shy and don't like any verbal conflicts I just gave up and blocked the opening between the seats with a pillow supported by my arm. After a while she gave up.
I realize that some people need more room, but that was just ridiculous.. and very impolite.
That flight wasn't too bad though, as I got to see some non-english-speaking chinese people try to figure out the completely english user interface for touchscreens embedded in the seats. It was interesting to see how they tried to navigate the menus and how frustrated they got.. (they never found the language settings, which I guess would have chinese as an option but was marked as just "LANGUAGE" so they couldn't find it)
Blaise: welll.. it isn't enough to have grit - you have to want to succeed a lot and be steadfastly insistent on it.. I checked a dictionary and its rather weak attempts were "never-say-die attitude" and "bulldog spirit"..
Thinking some more, I came up with the welsh word "Hiraeth" - which roughly means intense longing for some place or time.. nostalgia is a too mild word compared with hiraeth. Homesickness is maybe closer but hiraeth is still more intense.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that it is often used in poems..
Ooh, such a difficult question..
I think I'll go with Bester's "The Stars My Destination" (also known as "Tiger! Tiger!")
Can't quite place it - it isn't a typical space opera, nor is it hard SF... nor mundane SF. "Adventures in the future" is the closest I can bill it.
But Iain M. Banks' culture novels are very good too.. especially "Use of Weapons".
As for the Mundane SF manifesto - yep, sounds very much like typical Hard SF to me. With some more restrictions - there are some Hard SFers that still go overboard on futuristic imaginary technology/science. Mundane SF seem to want to project the current science to the future and only allow a little extrapolation.
Hm, would Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" and "The Sheep Look Up" classify as Mundane SF?
New languages: Japanese, Russian and Korean.
But I'd like to improve my Welsh, Chinese and maybe ASL too.
Written Welsh is a very nice language - it's at about the right level of difficulty for learners to pick it up easily. Of course the usefulness can be disputed(especially for a deaf person living in Sweden...) but it's a fun language to learn.
As for online resources for welsh.. the link Abiezer_Coppe giveis a good one. There are also the BBC page for learners and the cheat sheets at Clwb Malu Cachu.
I liked the quick zombies in Ruyhei Kitamura's Versus.
They're much more entertaining than the usual kind of slow shuffling zombies.
Sure, the slow ones look more menacing, but in the end I feel that they aren't as entertaining... Mind you, I haven't seen particularly many zombie flicks, so the other fast-moving ones may be rather boring compared to those in the film I mentioned.
Ahh, this is the excellent short 'Staplerfahrer Klaus' from 2001.
There's a web site by the filmmakers here.
Quite bloody but very funny. I only wish they had put in more of those screens illustrating what's forbidden throughout the film - they were brilliant.
Narnia.. The Aslan=Jesus allegory kind of works in most of the books, but it is most obvious in the first and the last book(The Last Battle) as they're from Genesis and Revelations(IIRC). And from my experience and what I've read, the last book is the least-liked book, mostly due to the negative concepts introduced from Revelations. But yes, thankfully there were a lot of nonbiblical elements in the books.
Now to make this more on topic... who would Lewis have voted for in this election, I wonder? If he was american and not dead, that is... Anybody know what his political views were?
Regarding reading in dreams... When I was learning welsh, I once dreamt entirely in print. there were just those red words in black space and I was some kind of editor, fixing grammar errors. The text did make sense after the grammar errors were fixed. The funny thing is that it's the only dream that I recall having any kind of letters...
I have had false awakenings too, however there were usually something over the whole experience that made it almost hyperrealistic while being unrealistic at the same time... like low gravity, I was bouncing around as if I had done so all my life and it wasn't strange at all to me at the time. Other times the colour and lighting made it look more like a film, and so on.
Sadly I'm the same as Fes now - I simply don't remember anything.
There are few women here partly because the students are CompSci students (D = Datateknik) For some reason women doesn't seem as easily attracted to computers as men.. *shrugs*
posted by gwyddon 19 years ago
In "Turbulence."
Imagine this: you sit in a long flight from China to Europe, trying to concentrate on a math textbook when the white 40-50ish woman behind you suddenly puts her feet on your armrest - so far in that they actually push your arm.. I was like WTF? and tried to politely push it back.. the foot vanished for some minutes, but far too soon it was back and again pushing way deep into my space. The pushing game went on for a few turns.. I tried to politely but sternly stare her into submission, but no go - she was just babbling something with her adjacent passengers. As I'm a bit shy and don't like any verbal conflicts I just gave up and blocked the opening between the seats with a pillow supported by my arm. After a while she gave up. I realize that some people need more room, but that was just ridiculous.. and very impolite. That flight wasn't too bad though, as I got to see some non-english-speaking chinese people try to figure out the completely english user interface for touchscreens embedded in the seats. It was interesting to see how they tried to navigate the menus and how frustrated they got.. (they never found the language settings, which I guess would have chinese as an option but was marked as just "LANGUAGE" so they couldn't find it)
posted by gwyddon 19 years ago
In "Curious words:"
Blaise: welll.. it isn't enough to have grit - you have to want to succeed a lot and be steadfastly insistent on it.. I checked a dictionary and its rather weak attempts were "never-say-die attitude" and "bulldog spirit".. Thinking some more, I came up with the welsh word "Hiraeth" - which roughly means intense longing for some place or time.. nostalgia is a too mild word compared with hiraeth. Homesickness is maybe closer but hiraeth is still more intense. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that it is often used in poems..
posted by gwyddon 19 years ago
Lagom Sisu And I also found an AskMefi thread on the same subject.
posted by gwyddon 19 years ago
In "Mundane SF"
Ooh, such a difficult question.. I think I'll go with Bester's "The Stars My Destination" (also known as "Tiger! Tiger!") Can't quite place it - it isn't a typical space opera, nor is it hard SF... nor mundane SF. "Adventures in the future" is the closest I can bill it. But Iain M. Banks' culture novels are very good too.. especially "Use of Weapons". As for the Mundane SF manifesto - yep, sounds very much like typical Hard SF to me. With some more restrictions - there are some Hard SFers that still go overboard on futuristic imaginary technology/science. Mundane SF seem to want to project the current science to the future and only allow a little extrapolation. Hm, would Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar" and "The Sheep Look Up" classify as Mundane SF?
posted by gwyddon 19 years ago
In "Curious George: Which new language"
New languages: Japanese, Russian and Korean. But I'd like to improve my Welsh, Chinese and maybe ASL too. Written Welsh is a very nice language - it's at about the right level of difficulty for learners to pick it up easily. Of course the usefulness can be disputed(especially for a deaf person living in Sweden...) but it's a fun language to learn. As for online resources for welsh.. the link Abiezer_Coppe giveis a good one. There are also the BBC page for learners and the cheat sheets at Clwb Malu Cachu.
posted by gwyddon 19 years ago
In "Shoot the head, kill the ghoul!"
I liked the quick zombies in Ruyhei Kitamura's Versus. They're much more entertaining than the usual kind of slow shuffling zombies. Sure, the slow ones look more menacing, but in the end I feel that they aren't as entertaining... Mind you, I haven't seen particularly many zombie flicks, so the other fast-moving ones may be rather boring compared to those in the film I mentioned.
posted by gwyddon 19 years ago
In "The importance of safety in the workplace"
Ahh, this is the excellent short 'Staplerfahrer Klaus' from 2001. There's a web site by the filmmakers here. Quite bloody but very funny. I only wish they had put in more of those screens illustrating what's forbidden throughout the film - they were brilliant.
posted by gwyddon 20 years ago
In "Who Your Favorite Novelists Are Voting For."
Narnia.. The Aslan=Jesus allegory kind of works in most of the books, but it is most obvious in the first and the last book(The Last Battle) as they're from Genesis and Revelations(IIRC). And from my experience and what I've read, the last book is the least-liked book, mostly due to the negative concepts introduced from Revelations. But yes, thankfully there were a lot of nonbiblical elements in the books. Now to make this more on topic... who would Lewis have voted for in this election, I wonder? If he was american and not dead, that is... Anybody know what his political views were?
posted by gwyddon 20 years ago
In "Curious George: Sleep disorders."
Regarding reading in dreams... When I was learning welsh, I once dreamt entirely in print. there were just those red words in black space and I was some kind of editor, fixing grammar errors. The text did make sense after the grammar errors were fixed. The funny thing is that it's the only dream that I recall having any kind of letters... I have had false awakenings too, however there were usually something over the whole experience that made it almost hyperrealistic while being unrealistic at the same time... like low gravity, I was bouncing around as if I had done so all my life and it wasn't strange at all to me at the time. Other times the colour and lighting made it look more like a film, and so on. Sadly I'm the same as Fes now - I simply don't remember anything.
posted by gwyddon 20 years ago
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