Ah yes, my third PhD...it's in Chaucer, you know. I was in the Chaucer department at Michigan. Read a lot of Chaucer. That, my friend, is the secret weapon in the battle to write hard science fiction. I get into some narrative trouble, or the physics is bringing me down, I just think-- what would the Wife of Bath do?
I don't read a lot of science fiction these days, but from what I remember from the early teens, it wasn't a lot of equation-solving unified-theory seeking battle of the nerds, it was like, fights in space and stuff. Maybe I just read the wrong stuff.
He may be even more annoying than Kim Du Toit
Nope.
Now, now, be careful with the stereotypical generalizations. We with Asperger's syndrome have feelings too, y'know. (Was that a joke? It was! Oh mater, I fabricated a witticism.)
Not all maladroit blatherheads are on the Asperger spectrum. Some are just maladroit blatherheads. The ones on the spectrum usually get their facts straight before blathering.
I heard a rumor some group in Canada markets "christian" video games. It looks like they take a first person shooter and change the gun to a cross and the bullets to white lights and call shooting "smiting."
What an awesome idea.
via The Poor Man, VD's response to those who want to kick him in the nuts:
Sure, I'll be happy to read every column I've ever written that even mentions Jews to you as well as my recent posts, right to your face. Should you still feel the urge to fight me - I can pretty much guarantee you won't - we can certainly bang. Send me an email with your city and I'll let you know when I happen to be in the area.Most people don't like their odds in taking on former NCAA D1 sprinters turned martial artists, especially not those who bench 300+, but I'm always up for a round or three. And if you happen to kick my ass, well, that's fine. You don't spend six years doing full-contact without getting beat down two or three hundred times.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
We with Asperger's syndrome have feelings too, y'know.
Sigh. I wish he were wrong.
You missed his piece a few months ago, that made the blog rounds, in which he explained that, you know, the way Jews act, you sure can understand anti-Semitism, ya know.
"....it wasn't a lot of equation-solving unified-theory seeking battle of the nerds, it was like, fights in space and stuff. Maybe I just read the wrong stuff."
FL, yeah, you did. Try Gene Wolfe, Greg Egan, Charlie Stross, Ken MacLeod, Cory Doctorow, Kim Stanley Robinson, Lucius Shepard, Bruce Sterling, Terry Bisson, Michael Swanwick, Geoffrey Landis, Vernor Vinge, Rudy Rucker, Robert Charles Wilson, Geoff Ryman, Iain Banks, J.G. Ballard, just to throw a few contemporary names out. There are lots more where those came from (including plenty I've not read; I've not kept up on the field in a very long time).
Ah, the secret is out. Labs and I were together in the Chaucer department at Michigan. He studied the Wife of Bath, whereas I dissertated on the Miller's tale.
Hey, Alameida, a serious question (which is a question, and not a criticism): how can you read this stuff? I can't even read stupid lefties; the stupid righties are just unbearable (except when they're called Hindrocket).
I am happy to provide the conceptual continuity link between this comment thread and that 100+ comment one.
From The Pardoner's Prologue:
...And when the uneducated people all do sit,
I preach, as you have heard me say before,
And tell a hundred false jokes, less or more.
I am at pains, then, to stretch forth my neck...