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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 15, 2024 at 11:25 AM
Excellent. I hope you enjoy it. It was the first book of Martin’s I read and it has stuck with me, though I don’t remember it in detail, just the broad outline.
Jon Polish wrote:
Thank you for mentioning this. Never heard of it and on your suggestion,
>read a sample and bought it.
>
>Jon
>
>Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>I don’t know if you have a deep enough familiarity with the works of
>>George R.R. Martin to have done this on purpose (kudos if you did), but
>>Martin—one of those espousing the joy of still using Wordstar, as
>>noted earlier in the thread—wrote a novel called “Dying of the
>>Light.” It is science fiction and a pretty good novel if my memory 45
>>years later hasn’t white-washed it.
>>
>>MadaboutDana wrote:
>>I dunno, I can think of worse ways to rage against the dying of the
>>>light… ;-)
>>>
>>>What you need, Listerene, is to discover the Laundry Files series by
>>>Charles Stross. Actually, all us Boomers need to read it. It’s
>>>very, very salutary…
>>>
>>>Listerene wrote:
>>>>PC-Outline isn’t how you
>>>>rage against the dying of the light.
Posted by Amontillado
Aug 15, 2024 at 02:21 PM
Thanks, MadaboutDana - I read a description and The Laundry Files sound fascinating.
Regarding rage against the candle burning low, I’ve recently redeveloped an interest in math.
I’m tired of being math-stupid, but there’s another reason. I want the mental calisthenics to toughen up against the onset of years.
Is it working? get back with me in my 90’s. My Mom could add six digit numbers in her head while hearing them at a conversational pace at age 90.
So far, my Kahn Academy courses are recreation, sort of like Sudoku, and I’ve found interesting things particularly about triangles. For instance, a consequence of the law of sines is that (ab)/hc (a times b divided by the height to the third side) is a constant. At this point I believe my nearly 70 years have not dimmed my dome light.
It’s also interesting how much really, really old tech is in daily use, even by the most enlightened of Gen-Z hipsters. Assuming, of course, hipster is not an anachronism when applied to Gen-Z. I’ll ask Nurse Ratched when she comes by with my meds.
MadaboutDana wrote:
I dunno, I can think of worse ways to rage against the dying of the
>light… ;-)
>
>What you need, Listerene, is to discover the Laundry Files series by
>Charles Stross. Actually, all us Boomers need to read it. It’s
>very, very salutary…
>
>Listerene wrote:
>>PC-Outline isn’t how you
>>rage against the dying of the light.
Posted by Amontillado
Aug 15, 2024 at 02:21 PM
Thanks, MadaboutDana - I read a description and The Laundry Files sound fascinating.
Regarding rage against the candle burning low, I’ve recently redeveloped an interest in math.
I’m tired of being math-stupid, but there’s another reason. I want the mental calisthenics to toughen up against the onset of years.
Is it working? get back with me in my 90’s. My Mom could add six digit numbers in her head while hearing them at a conversational pace at age 90.
So far, my Kahn Academy courses are recreation, sort of like Sudoku, and I’ve found interesting things particularly about triangles. For instance, a consequence of the law of sines is that (ab)/hc (a times b divided by the height to the third side) is a constant. At this point I believe my nearly 70 years have not dimmed my dome light.
It’s also interesting how much really, really old tech is in daily use, even by the most enlightened of Gen-Z hipsters. Assuming, of course, hipster is not an anachronism when applied to Gen-Z. I’ll ask Nurse Ratched when she comes by with my meds.
MadaboutDana wrote:
I dunno, I can think of worse ways to rage against the dying of the
>light… ;-)
>
>What you need, Listerene, is to discover the Laundry Files series by
>Charles Stross. Actually, all us Boomers need to read it. It’s
>very, very salutary…
>
>Listerene wrote:
>>PC-Outline isn’t how you
>>rage against the dying of the light.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Aug 16, 2024 at 09:23 AM
Love it! Funnily enough, I’ve started looking at maths again as something I really ought to get a once-and-for-all grip on (inasmuch as this is possible – the very fact that I’m saying that brands me indelibly as a rank mathematical amateur!)
I read for much the same reason: Charles Stross, Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow and the amazing qntm (for goodness’ sake read “There is no antimemetics division”!) are so mind-boggling brilliant and stimulating that I find myself rushing off to examine their various clever logical/mathematical/conceptual games from multiple angles. Stross’s first Laundry Files book in particular is so full of abstruse maths premises that I still haven’t worked out exactly what he’s saying – but he manages, like Stephenson at his best (Cryptonomicon), to combine rapid action with serious intellectual brainfodder.
qntm just has a totally extraordinary mind.
As it happens, I hadn’t heard of the George R.R. Martin novel – I shall go away and find it!
Thanks for the stimulating thoughts, everybody! I’m approaching mid-60s, so mental stimulus is always much appreciated!!!
Amontillado wrote:
Thanks, MadaboutDana - I read a description and The Laundry Files sound
>fascinating.
>
>Regarding rage against the candle burning low, I’ve recently redeveloped
>an interest in math.
>
>I’m tired of being math-stupid, but there’s another reason. I want the
>mental calisthenics to toughen up against the onset of years.
>
>Is it working? get back with me in my 90’s. My Mom could add six digit
>numbers in her head while hearing them at a conversational pace at age
>90.
>
>So far, my Kahn Academy courses are recreation, sort of like Sudoku, and
>I’ve found interesting things particularly about triangles. For
>instance, a consequence of the law of sines is that (ab)/hc (a times b
>divided by the height to the third side) is a constant. At this point I
>believe my nearly 70 years have not dimmed my dome light.
>
>It’s also interesting how much really, really old tech is in daily use,
>even by the most enlightened of Gen-Z hipsters. Assuming, of course,
>hipster is not an anachronism when applied to Gen-Z. I’ll ask Nurse
>Ratched when she comes by with my meds.
>
>MadaboutDana wrote:
>I dunno, I can think of worse ways to rage against the dying of the
>>light… ;-)
>>
>>What you need, Listerene, is to discover the Laundry Files series by
>>Charles Stross. Actually, all us Boomers need to read it. It’s
>>very, very salutary…
>>
>>Listerene wrote:
>>>PC-Outline isn’t how you
>>>rage against the dying of the light.
Posted by Cyganet
Aug 16, 2024 at 09:48 AM
jaslar wrote:
> Reviving Wordstar looks like a fun way to spend a day!
Fun is the right word for it :-)
I had never heard of WordStar before, and it’s quite interesting to look at what it can do. As a veteran CRIMPer of many years, I have learned that it’s not the software per se that I am interested in, but the workflow ideas that I get from people using different programs. For someone to stick with WordStar for so long suggests that it can do things that other programs can’t.
Some of the features that Robert Sawyer appreciates are a clean interface, easy-to-write comments, fast bookmarks, transparent formatting codes, full keyboard control, and different on-screen and print fonts (https://sfwriter.com/strength.txt). It seems to me that those features are now found in a markdown editor like Obsidian or Typora (with css and Pandoc export) rather than in MS Word. So they were there a long time ago and now they are back, but not in Word.
One feature that I would like to use is the fast bookmarks. I haven’t found its closest analogue yet, but the search led me to discover that Word has a lousy bookmarking interface. However, LibreOffice Writer’s navigator, writemonkey 3’s jump list and Atlantis Word Processor’s Control Board are all quite useful. I had been using Word’s navigator when writing long notes and I might use one of these instead.