From: blakes7-d-request@lysator.liu.se Subject: blakes7-d Digest V99 #241 X-Loop: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se X-Mailing-List: archive/volume99/241 Precedence: list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/digest; boundary="----------------------------" To: blakes7-d@lysator.liu.se Reply-To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se ------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blakes7-d Digest Volume 99 : Issue 241 Today's Topics: Re: [B7L] I'm baaaack........ [B7L] Re:B7L Killer Answers to the Killer Question Re: [B7L] Rewriting the Canon (wasPossible Federation Ender....) Re: [B7L] Possible Federation Ender.... Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question RE: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Re:B7L Killer Answers to the Killer Question Re: [B7L] Rewriting the Canon (wasPossible Federation Ender....) Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question Re: [B7L] Question ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 11:33:22 +0100 From: "Una McCormack" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] I'm baaaack........ Message-ID: <08d901bedff7$ba48c540$0d01a8c0@hedge> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jacqueline wrote: > I've been off writing fanfic for the past few weeks and as Penny so astutely > put it, that activity temporarily rotted my brain. But here I am again, and > I think I should start by replying to a few posts which I've saved for the > occasion. Good to have you back with us, Jacqueline. > So, Susan, get ready for the worst torture ever invented: the family photo > album. As you sit in the comfy chair, I will lovingly turn each page for > you, and with each photo I will in great detail tell you every cute little > thing that happened before, while and after that picture was taken. This > should take at least ten hours. Then, if you still haven't cracked, I will > go even further and start up the video for the home movies I've saved for > the occasion. I will say no more, as this is likely to upset those with weak > stomachs. The horror! The horror! My stomach churns, my arms flail at the thought! You Finalacters are wicked, wicked people! Can no-one save us? We await the Second Coming of Pope Bill! Una ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 05:57:21 +0100 From: nrice To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: [B7L] Re:B7L Killer Answers to the Killer Question Message-ID: <37ABBCB1.ECBE7A49@nrice.enterprise-plc.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Some people seem to have completely got hold of the wrong end of the laser probe. Killer is a brilliant B7 episode, although something like it has probably been written previously, and before I make my argument, might I suggest that sci-fi is based upon some form of prior scientific knowledge, but it always involves, as with other genres, a suspension of disbelief: it is usually set in the future and describes, in very sketchy detail, some obscure technology, but we are not meant to read it as scientific fact (it was amusing to see one contributor adamant that B7 should explain how man could travel faster than light; presumably a relation of Einstein wrote that particular episode). Anyway, there are two disputes about the plague that I'd like to comment upon: TECHNICAL ASPECT Helen and others have cast doubt upon the 'virus' classification of the plague in relation to deep space metabolic changes (as mentioned in Killer), saying such structural alterations could not affect the DNA, which is what a virus attacks. However the virus only manipulates DNA machinery to make simple RNA copies of itself, and when the cell is filled with these copies it bursts (as Dr Belfriar explains), allowing the new virus organisms to attack other cells. Perhaps deep space travel affects how quickly initial cell penetration occurs? Or maybe some other process science know little about yet? It is pointless to speculate on this as scientific theories are honed over time, especially with deep time :-). Witness Einstein's theories shifting science from Newtonian absolutism to relativity, and now, ironically enough, the news that in the early periods of the universe light actually travelled faster than now! The meaning of words also mutates, so the term 'virus' could have been applied to lots of sub-bacteria mechanisms, especially those artificially designed by aliens. STRATEGIC ASPECT People have also questioned the aliens' strategy in using germ warfare. Helen (again, sorry) suggests that they took a thousand years producing the virus, but in the actual script Blake states that the first deep space ships left from Earth 600-700 years ago, and they would take a long long time voyaging from Earth to the alien civilisation and then back again to Fosforon (or whatever planet this Wanderer class vehicle was targetting - by the way both Fosforon control and the Liberator detected it very easily) as they relied upon such primitive technology. Others wonder if the virus would fell the aliens too, but of course it was designed for human constitutions, probably very different. Thirdly contributors have criticised the policy of releasing a plague against humans, believing that it would have a very limited effect especially considering that it is only active against deep space veterans. However an assumption is being made here about the aims of the aliens: surely they merely want to put some distance between them and us, and slap our wrists, with minimum effort, and the most efficient method of achieving this is germ warfare. Dr Belfriar questions the efficacy of such a strategy in Killer, but Blake notes how successful it has already been (and refers us back to the English general who used contaminated bedsheets against the Indians). If a plague warning beacon hadn't been placed by Blake around Fosforon, the epidemic would surely have spread to other outer worlds (and thus allowed the introverted alien race to stay isolated). The catastrophe may have been interpreted only as a fire at first. Admittedly everyone would have been dead but the virus began spreading via contact between Wardin and Dr Wyler. Finally something in Wardin was kept 'alive' and he was activated only when being scanned by an electronic instrument. Obviously it would not matter a jot if Dr Wyler had been protected - the Wardin mummy would still have unprotected him first to ensure contact. I do agree it is odd that Blake and the crew seem to be immune to the virus, particularly so because they have travelled into deep space via non-Liberator means before (ie Federation transportation gives you the ague). However they do have Orac and a fine medical centre. The biggest question about B7 as regards whether it is convincing enough is that of 20th century technology, references, thinking and terminology being commonly applied still, however this problem afflicts all sci-fi to some degree, even Babylon 5, and we could not relate without some form of familiarity. I'm sure in the 28th/29th century cathode-ray-tube monitors and large cameras would be outdated, and blasters wouldn't have exactly the same effect as today's bullet-firing weaponry. There are many other redundancies too long to list, but I'm sure everybody out there has their own examples. JackDaniels R, long-time Blake sympathiser ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 06:44:13 +0100 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] Rewriting the Canon (wasPossible Federation Ender....) Message-ID: <017d01bee0b0$8f730ba0$1d14ac3e@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Trawling through the holiday backlog here. Hellen wrote: Tut tut, very naughty, how dare you even consider doing such a thing. Good news - you are not alone. Bad news - it's me you're not alone with. I'm sick to the back teeth with bloody crystals. Especially when they can be just chipped out of the rock or picked up off the ground and then slotted in with no modification whatsoever. And even when it is a device, there's always just the one of it, with half a dozen other parties trying to get their mitts on it at the same time. Why can't they, just for once, need to lay their hands on something that's churned out by the million and flogged on a 'Buy Two, Get One Free' basis? The circumstances in which I would consider rewriting the script would be: (a) When the canon violates its own internal continuity. Usually I go by a 'first come' principle, ie the first reference to something is the 'correct' one, and later violations must be altered accordingly. (eg Ensor's period of exile, variously given as 40, 30 or 20 years, or the confusion of speed scales in Stardrive.) But if later references outnumber the earlier ones, and/or offer more detail, then I might adopt them as my 'official' version. (eg the way spacials replaced the 'subsecs' mentioned in Spacefall, though you could argue that more than one system of long range measurement was extant in the B7 universe.) (b) When the script is peddling scientific nonsense, though wherever possible I rationalise this as one or other character spouting crap (eg Servalan's comments on the Links in Terminal). There's not that much Bad Science (at least, not Really Bad Science) in B7, at least not in what gets spoken. There's all kinds of visual garbage, like spaceships going at FTL speeds round a planet for far too long, and how Muller's android managed to make a corpse's lips move I wouldn't like to guess. (c) When the script is reasonable on its own, but problematical in the context of a wider rationalisation. One example for me is Ven Glynd's reference to two years (since he last saw Blake) in Voice - this is too short a period for me, I would rather have 4-5 years. I think the easiest things to change with minimal distress are numbers. Most of these were probably plucked out of a hat anyway. For consistency's sake, I tend to multiply detector ranges in Allan Prior scripts by a factor of about 2,000 - this brings pursuit ship detector range into line with that in non-Prior episodes. The main argument against rewriting the canon is not, IMO, the sacrosanct purity of the original scripts, since most of them are neither sacred nor particularly pure. But they are the one common body of knowledge around which fandom revolves. Tinker with that, and that common understanding is eroded. (As the Lyst amply shows, there's enough multiple interpretation already). I don't deny that I do make some minor edits to tidy up the rationalisation in my subcanon, but I try to keep them to a bare minimum (bar junking Dawn as a pathetic piece of that-never-happened wombat-doos). The main personal re-editing that I do is not to what we hear, but to what we see, but then here it is so much easier to blame the budget, the over-rushed shooting schedule, Nicky Rocker etc. You can mentally reconstruct an entire episode without changing so much as a single word in the script and no one else need know, much less care. Of course, come the time when Phantom Menace level CGI can run on a home PC, and we're all storing our home-made B7 on DVD, we might have something to argue about. Until that happy day, however ... Neil ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 06:44:25 +0100 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] Possible Federation Ender.... Message-ID: <017e01bee0b0$909803a0$1d14ac3e@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jacquleine wrote: >No I'm not getting any ducking miseases fuddled. The whole point of my >argument was that the crew of K47 *didn't* have to have suffered the Terran >Ague. I thought that might have been what you meant, but I couldn't be sure. >They only had to carry the virus without being in any way affected by >it. If by 'it' you mean the virus, then I don't think there's ever been any doubt. If you mean the Terran Ague, then there's no hard evidence either way. >The virus could have been smeared in a gel on the outside of that stuff >they were wearing that made them look like mummies. Surely the mummification was merely the result of being dead for 700 years? Though come to think of it, I'm not sure what state the body would have been in. Depends on cabin temperature and whether or not it was pressurised (with oxygen present), I suppose. Were either of these factors mentioned in the script? And wasn't it 'him' rather than 'them'? Only one body - Wardin's - on the ship as I recall. Nyaah boo sucks I know the episode better than you. >> The entry for Terran Ague in the Sevencyclopaedia (which I wrote so it >> must >> be right:)) says that the condition affects anyone who travels in deep >> space - no reference to speed at all. >> >Ok, but where did you get that info? From the episode, of course. >All I remember is the doc saying that >everyone who first travels in space gets it. But he would have said so even >if this only happened at FTL speeds, if that was the only way anyone ever >travelled in space. He simply wouldn't have bothered to mention the >difference for something that never happened anyway. Possibly, possibly not. Personally, I think if FTL travel was a prerequisite for getting Terran Ague, then Bellfriar would have said so. More to the point, Robert Holmes would have had him say so. The case for any deep space travel inducing Terran Ague lies principally with the infraluminal nature of K47. As you yourself asked in an earlier post >Of course that leaves open the question of >how the aliens would have known about the Terran Ague when there were still >only sublight vessels available. One possible explanation is that they were >caught after faster-than-light travel had been invented. Another, simpler, and generally more likely reason is that the crew of K47 had undergone the 3-Day Sweat and the results were there in all their glory for the aliens to see. More to the point, how did the aliens know that the nucleic alterations were induced by space travel, or indeed that they were alterations at all? This introduces the more chilling idea of the virus being developed not to confine humanity to Earth, but to wipe out humanity full stop. Not that this explains why K47 should turn up at Fosforon, anything up to 3000 light years off-target. Maybe the evil designs of the Nasty Aliens were thwarted by some rebel Nice Aliens in their midst, who fitted the plague ship with a hyperdrive and sent it way off course soon after launch. 'Well done, Grmflbkx, you've saved the Pink Ones,' said one to the other, little realising just how far from home the Pink Ones would be in 700 years time. Nor does it explain why those charming extra-terrestrial types at 61 Cygni should have it in for us in the first place, but B7 proved more than once that you can't keep a good cliche down. >> I do agree, though, that the virus did not kill the crew of K47, but was >> planted on them after they'd died. >> >What, you agree with me? Must have done something wrong, then :-). Reckon I must have done. The trouble with storms in teacups is the way they tend to carbonise the sugar. Neil ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 05:07:31 +0100 From: "Neil Faulkner" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: <017c01bee0b0$8e01c860$1d14ac3e@default> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lisa wrote: >Tramila wrote: > >>I'm working on a story and need some information. Is there a different word >>for mosquito on the other side of the Altantic? > >The other side from where? (FWIW, my British-American dictionary doesn't >list it as something which needs to be translated, to either side of the pond.) The Mosquito was also known as the 'wooden wonder' because it was largely constructed of ... oh, wrong mosquito. Seriously, the only possible difference I can think of is one of colloquial reference. Brits tend to refer to the things as 'mozzies', whereas I understand Americans say 'skeeters', though I wouldn't be surprised if both terms have widespread usage on both sides of the pond. The Russian for mosquito seems to be 'Komar' which I suppose could make a passable handle for some interstellar Slavic assassin. The German for mosquito is ... erm ... Moskito. I wonder what they're called in Swahili. Neil ------------------------------ Date: 07 Aug 1999 11:34:24 +0200 From: Calle Dybedahl To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII "Neil Faulkner" writes: > I wonder what they're called in Swahili. I don't know, but in Swedish they're "mygg". I'm sure you all really wanted to know that. Did they have rats and spiders and such on the Liberator, do you think? -- Calle Dybedahl, Vasav. 82, S-177 52 Jaerfaella,SWEDEN | calle@lysator.liu.se "I like darkness, because it shows us light" -- Victoria McManus ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 11:54:53 +0200 From: Jacqueline Thijsen To: lysator Subject: RE: [B7L] Question Message-ID: <39DCDDFD014ED21185C300104BB3F99F5F75E3@NL-ARN-MAIL01> Content-Type: text/plain Neil asked: > The German for mosquito is ... erm ... Moskito. > > I wonder what they're called in Swahili. > I dunno, but the Dutch word for mosquito is mug. Didn't you just always want to know that? Jacqueline ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 11:07:01 +0100 From: "Una McCormack" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: <0c2001bee0bc$9bbef890$0d01a8c0@hedge> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Calle wrote > Did they have rats and spiders and such on the Liberator, do you think? They had to introduce owls to keep the rat population down. Cats got spacesick. Una ------------------------------ Date: 07 Aug 1999 12:46:53 +0200 From: Calle Dybedahl To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII "Una McCormack" writes: > They had to introduce owls to keep the rat population down. Cats got > spacesick. In Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" they hacked the cats to give them wings. A much better solution, if you ask me. -- Calle Dybedahl, Vasav. 82, S-177 52 Jaerfaella,SWEDEN | calle@lysator.liu.se Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 12:41:42 +0100 From: "Una McCormack" To: "lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: <0c3c01bee0c9$d60431c0$0d01a8c0@hedge> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Calle wrote: > "Una McCormack" writes: > > > They had to introduce owls to keep the rat population down. Cats got > > spacesick. > > In Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" they hacked the cats to give > them wings. A much better solution, if you ask me. I suppose it would fill the long, tedious days... Una ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 04:58:04 PDT From: "Hellen Paskaleva" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: <19990807115804.5725.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Neil wrote: >The Russian for mosquito seems to be 'Komar' which I suppose could make a >passable handle for some interstellar Slavic assassin. Yep! Slavonic, though, not just Russian. Hellen ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 06:24:06 PDT From: "Hellen Paskaleva" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Re:B7L Killer Answers to the Killer Question Message-ID: <19990807132410.16047.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >nrice , (JackDaniels R) wrote: > >...and before I make my argument, might I suggest that >sci-fi is based upon some form of prior scientific knowledge, but it always >involves, as with other genres, a suspension of disbelief: it is usually >set in >the future and describes, in very sketchy detail, some obscure technology, >but we >are not meant to read it as scientific fact… Funny. These days I had an argument with a friend exactly on this topic. He stated, that he hates the Sci-Fi genre, because it tends to describe things, which were never happened, and which were immposible to happen at all. On the opposite, I insisted, that the main thing, which makes Sci-Fi so attractive, is the *possibility* all this to happen, to became true. (That’s why, I, personaly, prefer the “hard” Sci-Fi to the Fantasy, for sample.) This is the whole point of the discussion, therefore – to make the story probable/ credible, simply, to make it belivable. > …structural alterations could not affect the DNA, which is what a >virus attacks. Impossible not to. As the active part of the virus is it’s D(R)NA, it allways affects the atacked cell. It is even considered, that some virus particles are responsible for cancer diseases (malignant tumors, as it is known, are (most probably) a result of the impact of the virus particles over host’s DNA). >However the virus only manipulates DNA machinery to make simple RNA copies >of >itself, and when the cell is filled with these copies it bursts (as Dr >Belfriar >explains), allowing the new virus organisms to attack other cells. Every virus does so. No need to be an extra-terestrial one. I am even thinking on the approach, which excludes the ‘alien’ influence here. Couldn’t it be possible for the craft to contain the spontaneus (saused by cosmic rays, for sample) mutation, lethal for the most of the people? Such a mutations have had already happened here, on the Earth. More over, what could be this space region, NEAR TO THE EARTH, and still not explored, I wonder. Granted, if it was on the other side of the Galaxy, but it was obviously reached by the one of the first interstellar crafts, launched by the human. >The meaning of words also >mutates, so the term 'virus' could have been applied to lots of >sub-bacteria >mechanisms, especially those artificially designed by aliens. Quite possible. Hellen, the Bulgarian ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 06:52:49 PDT From: "Hellen Paskaleva" To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Rewriting the Canon (wasPossible Federation Ender....) Message-ID: <19990807135250.77043.qmail@hotmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Neil wrote: >Good news - you are not alone. >Bad news - it's me you're not alone with. The honour is mine. >I'm sick to the back teeth with bloody crystals. Especially when they can >be just chipped out of the rock or picked up off the ground and then >slotted >in with no modification whatsoever. LOL!! I have exactly the same problem! Do you remember that *crystals* in the “City at edge of the world”? For ship’s weponary, or whatsoever it was, system? I was simply stunned… (Besides, my aforesaid phrase apears in the “City…”, too. ;-) ) >And even when it is a device, there's always just the one of it, with half >a >dozen other parties trying to get their mitts on it at the same time. Why >can't they, just for once, need to lay their hands on something that's >churned out by the million and flogged on a 'Buy Two, Get One Free' basis? It is supposed to be a military tecnology or something. Despite, it’ll be a good idea for used Federal chiper mashines (with their old codes) to be sold on the closing down sales… Every summer, probably. :-) >The circumstances in which I would consider rewriting the script would be… I am agree with almost every word, you said… (pardon, wrote) afterwards. My point is exactly the same. My usual question regarding whatsoever happens in the movie, is: “How things would look like, if there wasn’t budget restrictions, uncompetent (and predjudised, sometimes) scriptwriters and if there was studio-tecnology, as in the aforementioned “Phantom Menace”?” The answer is supposed to give the true story, as it have happened (would happened, may be). Hellen, the Bulgarian ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 16:54:26 GMT From: dixonm@access.mountain.net (Meredith Dixon) To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: <37b36434.175150696@access.mountain.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Seriously, the only possible difference I can think of is one of colloquial >reference. Brits tend to refer to the things as 'mozzies', whereas I >understand Americans say 'skeeters', though I wouldn't be surprised if both >terms have widespread usage on both sides of the pond. I've never heard "mozzies", and it surprises me to hear of it, since (over here at least) "mosquito" is accented on the "squi", hence "skeeters". Is there a pronunciation difference which would account for the different nickname? -- Meredith Dixon Check out *Raven Days*, for victims and survivors of bullying. And for those who want to help. http://web.mountain.net/~dixonm/raven.html ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 09:45:46 -0700 From: Tramila To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19990807094546.007e9dc0@earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>Tramila wrote: >> >>>I'm working on a story and need some information. Is there a different >word for mosquito on the other side of the Altantic? Lisa wrote: >The other side from where? (FWIW, my British-American dictionary Opps. I didn't think to look it up in that dictionary. hummmm Now where did I put it. Neil wrote: >The Mosquito was also known as the 'wooden wonder' because it was largely >constructed of ... oh, wrong mosquito. LOL >Seriously, the only possible difference I can think of is one of colloquial >reference. Brits tend to refer to the things as 'mozzies', whereas I >understand Americans say 'skeeters', though I wouldn't be surprised if both >terms have widespread usage on both sides of the pond. Wow. Thank you for the information. I'll simply use mosquito and be done with it. Hugs, Tramila ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 18:39:50 +0100 From: "Julie Horner" To: "Lysator" Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: <003001bee0fb$dad11060$c26845c2@orac> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----Original Message----- From: Calle Dybedahl >I don't know, but in Swedish they're "mygg". I'm sure you all really >wanted to know that. Funny that 'cos in England I have always heard them referred to as "midgies". Is that just a Northern name or what? Julie ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Aug 1999 19:19:22 +0100 From: "Angua" To: "Blake's 7 Lysator List" Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: <02d001bee101$93af2ae0$d76b989e@demon.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Julie wrote : > Funny that 'cos in England I have always heard them referred > to as "midgies". Is that just a Northern name or what? It could well be, we've always called them midgies/midges, or even gnats. Not even sure if these things are the same species as mosquitos, but they all bite ! Louise http://starriders.net - Babylon 5, Blake's 7, SF cult tv and movies, free graphics, and more ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Aug 1999 15:43:26 -0500 From: Lisa Williams To: Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-Id: <4.1.19990807153744.0096ad40@mail.dallas.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Julie Horner wrote: >Funny that 'cos in England I have always heard them referred >to as "midgies". Is that just a Northern name or what? "Midge", which is etymologically related to the Swedish "mygg", is widely used to refer to any of a number of small, flying insects, including gnats (which don't bite), mosquitoes and sand flies (both of which do). - Lisa _____________________________________________________________ Lisa Williams: lcw@dallas.net or lwilliams@raytheon.com Lisa's Video Frame Capture Library: http://lcw.simplenet.com/ From Eroica With Love: http://eroica.simplenet.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 12:35:19 EDT From: Pherber@aol.com To: blakes7@lysator.liu.se Subject: Re: [B7L] Question Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/7/99 5:43:20 AM Mountain Daylight Time, una@q-research.connectfree.co.uk writes: > > In Vernor Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" they hacked the cats to give > > them wings. A much better solution, if you ask me. > > I suppose it would fill the long, tedious days... > Hmmm. No thanks -- my cats fly enough as it is. Seem to think that just because the *dragons* can fly, so can they. And they *both* see *lots* of dragons... Nina (Relearning the art of living with very young cats) -------------------------------- End of blakes7-d Digest V99 Issue #241 **************************************