05/02/19 – Abstract History



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2019-05-02-spacetrawler2

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10:00pm already? I need to be in bed!

17 Comments

    1. Peter Rogan

      I take it you haven’t listened to the neo-Nazis repeating their culture of absolute intolerance and genocide. Worth listening to, if for nothing but the chance to remember what they did.

      1. Thracecius

        Unfortunately, it’s not only the Neo-Nazis who have a culture of absolute intolerance. People need to remain aware that those who sit in the halls of power must be listened to and evaluated carefully, because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those who are paying attention to what their leaders do, not just what they **say** they do, are aware of the caution I’m advising.

  1. Muzhik

    Walter M. Miller, Jr. wrote what I consider to be the best post-nuclear-war novel, one of the first after WW2, and what is a towering example of 20th Century American literature: A Canticle for Leibowitz. Here is a quote from the first part of the novel the makes clear what Dmitri is trying to say:

    The monks of the earliest days had not counted on the human ability to generate a new cultural inheritance in a couple of generations if an old one is utterly destroyed, to generate it by virtue of lawgivers and prophets, geniuses or maniacs; through a Moses, or through a Hitler, or an ignorant but tyrannical grandfather, a cultural inheritance may be acquired between dusk and dawn, and many have been so acquired. But the new “culture” was an inheritance of darkness, wherein “simpleton” meant the same thing as “citizen” meant the same thing as “slave.”

    1. Ryan

      “Canticle” is a priceless classic, and an encouraging one in light of the destruction of Notre Dame. Miller was part of the team of engineers who had to bomb Monticello when Nazi SS troops stole it from the monks to use as a fortress, and had to be hit HARD before their artillery was fully in place to take advantage of the high ground against the Allies. He expected the Monks to be utterly devastated, but, instead their stoic attitude filled him with wonder and sparked a deep interest in Catholicism. He was all the more astounded years later when he can back and saw the monastery and cathedral he had helped destroy almost perfectly rebuilt like the original form just PHOTOGRAPHS, to within only a six inch margin of error.
      Notre Dame’s damage is not nearly as bad and the original has high resolution 3D files to work with. While I’d recommend something less toxic then soaking the beams in lead oxide, otherwise, they can and should rebuild the roof EXACTLY as it was.

      1. Muzhik

        @Ryan, thanks to whomever for re-arranging this comment thread, and thanks to you for that post. I’ve been a fan of his work for decades, but never researched his life (after learning that he died by suicide — rest in piece) so I did not know about his WW2 experiences.

        I just wish I had the writing chops needed to turn his novel into a screenplay. Who would you pick to play Poet Sirrah?

  2. russell styles

    He should make sure whether or not the Kreebrick is real before the trial is over.
    The fact that there was one, and that unclamped telekinesis is the only force that can deal with them makes me think that they need to have some unclamped Eebs.
    Someone is surely working on a way to unclamp them already, it’s kind of unavoidable.

  3. Muzhik

    Forgive me for being too lazy to go back and track this down, but doesn’t killing the Kreebrick (Is “Killing the Kreebrick” the sequel to “The Hunting of the Snark”? Oh, well … ) result in the death of the eeb?

    “Beware the unclamped Eeb, my son! … Beware the Jubjub bird … ” Hey! Is Pilot an example of a Jubjub bird? The wingless variety?

        1. Muzhik

          @Gregg, no. At the time, the only un-clamped eebs available were the ones being raised for and installed as engines in Spacetrawlers. A Spacetrawler engine would suck up the small bits of matter (asteroids, stellar dust, the odd Voyager spacecraft) and convert all of that to energy. An un-clamped eeb should be able to “squish” the Kneebrick allowing it to be destroyed. But an un-clamped eeb in an engine will also try to suck it up while squishing it in order to convert it to energy, which results in the destruction of the engine and its eeb.

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