THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
03/21/14 -- Vol. 32, No. 38, Whole Number 1798


Co-Editor: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Co-Editor: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
        Bruce Sterling's Closing Remarks at SXSW
        Futurist Terms
        Another You (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
        Puzzle (contributed by Tom Russell)
        The Digital Comic Museum (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
        Password Question (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
        THE POSTMAN's Moral Ambiguity (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
        Counting Countries, Updated, with Observations on the
                Travelers Century Club (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
        MARS (2010) (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
        VERONICA MARS (film review by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)
        UWANTME2KILLHIM? (film review by Mark R. Leeper)
        Numbers of Things (letter of comment by Dan Cox)
        ALL IS LOST (letter of comment by Gregory Benford)
        Daylight Saving Time (letters of comment by Paul Dormer,
                Keith F. Lynch, Peter Trei, and Tim McDaniel)
        This Week's Reading (LONGBOURN and THE RIDDLE OF THE
                LABYRINTH) (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

==================================================================

TOPIC: Bruce Sterling's Closing Remarks at SXSW

The original sound file of Bruce Sterling's closing remarks at SXSW
is at .
There is a transcript at http://pastebin.com/LYZvU0GL.

==================================================================

TOPIC: Futurist Terms

There is a list (with definitions) of "20 Crucial Terms Every 21st
Century Futurist Should Know" from io9 at
http://tinyurl.com/void-futurist.

==================================================================

TOPIC: Another You (comments by Mark R. Leeper)

Apple is working on a device that will allow you to download your
entire consciousness onto one small device you can carry in your
shirt pocket.  It will be called the iI.  [-mrl]

==================================================================

TOPIC: Puzzle (contributed by Tom Russell)

March 14, 2014, my wife and I observed the sun rise in the west.

Well, even the fool on the hill knows that the sun doesn't actually
rise; it is an illusion.  The earth's rotation causes the sun to
appear on the horizon and then to apparently move higher and higher
until it is completely above the horizon.

This is the same sequence we witnessed yesterday: when we looked
out of the window the sun was a blob on the horizon; but then it
moved up in the sky until it was a disk completely above the
horizon; then it continued to move even further up in the sky--but
it was in the western sky, not in the east.

How did we see this?  [-tlr]

[Answer next week.  -mrl]

==================================================================

TOPIC: The Digital Comic Museum (comments by Mark R. Leeper)

The Digital Comic Museum is apparently a collection of public
domain comic books from the pre-1960s "Golden Age" that are free to
download and read.  According to the Open Culture site there are
more than 15,000 comic books.  If you don't mind reading on a
computer, it is quite a stash.  You can find out details at:

http://tinyurl.com/void-dcm

[-mrl]

==================================================================

TOPIC: Password Question (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

Why is it that the financial sites, for which one would want to
most secure passwords, are the ones most likely to exclude special
characters from the set of characters allowed?  [-ecl]

==================================================================

TOPIC: THE POSTMAN's Moral Ambiguity (comments by Mark R. Leeper)

[This article appeared previously in Steven Silver's fanzine
ARGENTUS.  If you already have a copy of the article you are
entitled to a full refund on this week's issue.]

I have a few films that seem almost universally panned by the
critics, but anyone I show the film to seems to like it.  One is
Timothy Hines's version of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005).  It is not
just done as a period piece; it is one that is extremely faithful
to the book.  Now I could call such a film a guilty pleasure, but
that would be wrong.  A guilty pleasure is a film you know is bad
but that you like in spite of its faults.  I just almost never can
bring myself to see a film I like as being a bad film.  It is hard
to entertain someone with a piece of celluloid.  If I like a film
it is good and I am willing to defend it as such.  I can think of
only one film as being a genuine guilty pleasure of mine, and that
would be THE STORY OF O.  But that is a very different sort of
"guilty pleasure."

More to the point there is another film that is something of a
laughing stock for some people, but I consider a good film.  And
most people I have shown it to have agreed it was quite good.  That
film is THE POSTMAN (1997), directed by it star Kevin Costner and
based on the novel by David Brin.  The film was a failure at the
box office and was lambasted by the critics.  But I keep running
into people who say, "Don't laugh, but I really liked THE POSTMAN."
I think this is a film with a very interesting message.

So what is my interpretation of the film?  Consider this: There are
chemical solutions that are ready to crystallize, but they do not.
The solution is chemically pure and all the conditions are right.
But the crystal still does not form.  What is needed is a seed to
crystallize around.  Add one little speck of contaminant--a piece
of dust maybe--and almost instantly the entire fluid crystallizes.
The film THE POSTMAN shows us a world that is ready to undergo a
monumental change, but it needs a catalyst to start the reaction.
The right lie at the right time sets everything on the right
course.

The film is a post-apocalyptic view of a United States that has
reverted to town-sized city-states.  We are never told why
everything went sour, but we just know that it did.  Everybody
knows it has fallen apart and it is impossible to put back
together.  That is an unpleasant truth that people have had to
swallow, and they know that truth.  People are tired of the truth
and want things to heal, but the truth is in front of them every
day and is undeniable.  A paramilitary gang of marauders preys on
towns like the bandits in MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.  They are the only law
that exists and there is no government to stop them.

Into this unpleasant reality is dropped one liar, a con man.  It
seems he has found a mailbag full of letters from before all the
nastiness.  It came from back when mail was actually delivered or
just a little later.  The scoundrel decides to see if he can con a
town into feeding him.  The idea is he is going to claim to be a
mailman, working for a US government that is coming back together.
The mail is starting again and he claims he has been appointed to
be a postman.  Oh, and by the way--he adds--the town has a legal
duty to feed him while he is there.  That is part of the deal if
they want to get their mail.

But what the people of the town have heard is that the US
government is coming back together.  Soon there will be protection
from the marauding gangs.  Normal times are returning.  This is
what everybody wants, and now the news has come that it is starting
to happen.  They now believe they have to organize themselves and
be ready when the US Government contacts them.  And that makes all
the difference.

Every country teaches its school children that it is good.  It is
on the side of right and truth.  Usually we think of this as a bad
thing.  THE POSTMAN asks if sometimes our ideals are lies and if
they are is that really a bad thing.  Two religions may hold
mutually exclusive beliefs yet good can be done in the name of
each.  [-mrl]

==================================================================

TOPIC: Counting Countries, Updated, with Observations on the
Travelers Century Club (comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

[This is an update of an article from a couple of years ago, mostly
because someone asked me the question recently.]

People often ask us how many countries we have visited.  It is not
a simple question to answer.  (States are easier--all fifty, though
even there one has to add "and Washington, D.C.").

First, there are 49 unequivocal countries:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada,
China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt,
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel,
Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico,
Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Peru, Romania, Russia, Singapore,
South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey,
Turks & Caicos, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican City,
Vietnam, Zimbabwe

Then there are four countries that were all part of one country
when we visited, but split up about a week later:
- Bosnia-Hercegovina
- Croatia
- Slovenia
- Yugoslavia (Serbia)

And another two that also split (though more peacefully):
- Czech Republic
- Slovakia

Two "countries" were actually British territories, but are usually
counted separately:
- Gibraltar
- Hong Kong

(And Hong Kong is now part of China, but not completely
incorporated there either.)

While we're at it, some people would count four more we have
visited as countries (if not sovereign nations):
- Puerto Rico
- Wales
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland

The last four are not sovereign nations, but are countries in the
sense of being treated as separate entities from their governing
nations by various organizations--for example, the International
Olympic Committee and AMPAS (Puerto Rico and Hong Kong), and
various sport associations (Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland).

Seven others--which at least are undisputed countries--barely
count:
- New Zealand (walked around the airport in Wellington two
   different times)
- South Korea (walked around the airport in Seoul two
   different times)
- Senegal (saw the airport out the plane window during a stop
   there)
- Namibia (was in riparian territorial waters)
- Nicaragua (was in riparian territorial waters)
- Zambia (was in riparian territorial waters, and also a short
   stretch between Zimbabwe and Botswana))

And finally, a "one-off";
- United Nations (it issues its own stamps and is not part of any
   other country)

Well, almost finally.  It turns out that the "Travelers Century
Club" has a list of "countries" which takes into account (e.g.)
continental separations and island groups.  So when counting from
their list we would add Alaska, Hawaii, and the Galapagos Islands,
and count Turkey in Europe and Turkey in Asia as separate
countries.

Now I think the TCC rules are questionable.  For example, they
define an island group that is within 200 miles of its home
country, but has a population of at least 100,000, and is
administered as a separate state, province, or department, as a
separate "country."  So Prince Edward Island counts as a separate
country (being a Canadian province), but Manhattan Island does not.
(Hawai'i does, because satisfies another requirement: it is more
than 200 miles from the home country.)

On the other hand, they clearly exclude the United Nations, because
it has no resident population.

(See http://tinyurl.com/void-tcc-rules for the full list of
rules.)

Anyway, here's the summary:
- 49 unequivocal
-  6 formed from two earlier countries that fissioned
-  6 territories/semi-autonomous regions of the US, UK, and China
-  3 airport stops (2 deplaning, 1 not)
-  3 riparian visits and/or very brief land crossings
-  1 one-off
-  4 additional if TCC geographical separation rules are counted
   (but then minus 1 for the United Nations)

So I believe that currently the strictest count would be 47, and
the most inclusive would be 71.  My guess is that the number the
most people would agree on would be 61 (the first three categories,
but not the last four).

[By the way, our current car has been in  all the states except
Alaska, Florida, Hawai'i, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and
Washington, and all the Canadian provinces/territories except
Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Prince Edward Island, and Yukon.]
[-ecl]

==================================================================

TOPIC: MARS (2010) (film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: When new life may or may not have been discovered by a
robot probe on Mars three very ordinary people are sent to Mars to
confirm or deny the discovery of life.  These are definitely not
astronauts with the "Right Stuff."  They might not even have any
stuff at all.  This is an animated film done on a small budget with
in the "mumblecore" style.  Mixing mumblecore with science fiction
is original, but the resulting film demands more than it delivers
in return.  Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10

To start what is "mumblecore""  Wikipedia defines mumblecore as "a
subgenre of American independent film characterized by low budget
production values and amateur actors, heavily focused on
naturalistic dialogue."  One of the filmmakers associated with the
movement is Mark Duplass.  The films rarely have a lot going on and
more focus on dialog that is rarely even dramatic.  The dialog
frequently sounds unscripted and improvised.  This sounds like the
antithesis of science fiction films that frequently use special
effects and are directed to getting to specific plot points.  Films
like DARK STAR (1974) sometimes throw in some naturalistic dialog
for comic effect specifically to show how unexpected it is in a
science fiction film.  MARS is creative for trying to bring the two
types of story together for an entire film.

This is science fiction without a sense of excitement.  Life is
discovered on Mars by a mobile probe.  We know from the beginning
that this life is a contamination of Earth origin, but the
characters do not know that their probe has been contaminated (in a
way that is rather unlikely, by the way).  Earth decides it is time
to send two missions to Mars, one purely robotic and one with three
astronauts: Charlie Brownsville (the same Mark Duplass), Dr. Casey
Cook (Zoe Simpson) and Hank (Paul Gordon).  We travel with the
intrepid trio listening to their conversation, which is
frustratingly banal and irrelevant. That is mumblecore for you.
The brave astronauts are urged on by a southern-style President of
the United States, played by Kinky Friedman in a cowboy hat.

Eventually romance blooms between Charlie and Casey. And they seal
their love by peeing it into the surface of Mars (also rather
unlikely, by the way).  But then romance had its chance to take
hold as they go from a zero-G section of the ship to the swimming
pool ("unlikely" does not cover this one).  While the claim was
made by writer/director Geoff Marslett that most of the film
follows scientific fact it really is not hard to find howlers like
that radio communication between Earth and Mars is instantaneous.
There are a some interesting concepts discussed, but much of the
conversation leads to not very much.  The humor, and there is a
lot, is decidedly off-center and hit or miss.

At least the look of MARS is unusual.  It uses bright colors
throughout.  The film is entirely done in a rotoscoped animation
technique in homage to WAKING LIFE and A SCANNER DARKLY, but it is
more than a step down in quality.  Marslett brought in his project
on a reported $450,000 budget.

MARS is a film more notable for its odd mixture of science fiction
and mumblecore than for actually being a believable story.  I rate
it a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 5/10.  MARS will be available
on March 25 on iTunes, PlayStation, Vudu & Xbox.

Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1109488/combined

What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mars/

[-mrl]

==================================================================

TOPIC: VERONICA MARS (film review by Dale L. Skran, Jr.)

VERONICA MARS  is a series about a detective who solved cases on
the side while she attended high school and later college.  It ran
as a television series for three years before cancellation.
Tremendous fan interest and a successful Kickstarter campaign led
to a movie that is unique in having the first simultaneous
theatrical and on-line openings.  Starring Kristen Bell, this film
noir/neo-noir effort combines elements from Nancy Drew, Phillip
Marlowe, and even a bit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  My wife is a
big fan of the television series, but this was my first encounter
with Veronica Mars.  I am pleased to report that VERONICA MARS
emerges as a smart, smooth, and entertaining murder mystery tale
that brings an original perspective to a well-worn genre.

The general structure of the movie is similar to that of the new
werewolf series BITTEN.  A beautiful blond lives in big city where
she has a handsome boyfriend and a growing career.  A murder in her
old hometown brings her back to her roots, and involves her in a
deadly situation.  She is forced to decide between old and new
loves, and between the joys of an ordinary life and the pulsing
adrenaline surge of life and death encounters.  Both characters
have an outward smoothness that hides a deeper darkness, a will to
win, and a hunger for both justice and revenge.

Like Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars has a father who is a detective,
friends who assist her, and often investigates crimes related to
people who attended her old high school.  Like Phillip Marlowe,
Veronica Mars walks a line between the rich and poor down the sun-
drenched streets of a corrupt town, where the police are no
friends, and no one can be fully trusted.  With her Marlowe-like
sarcasm, Veronica skewers foes right and left, leaving no one
undamaged.

There are curious parallels with Buffy as well, although no
supernatural elements.  Both series involve a blond who lives in a
California town, and defends it against evil.  In both cases, the
police are corrupt and part of the evil that controls the town.
Both blonds have a preferred set of weapons, Veronica a taser and
pepper spray, while Buffy carries the Scythe and Mister Pointee,
her favorite stake.  There are rough character parallels, with
Veronica's detective dad the sage advisor to match Buffy's Watcher,
Mr. Giles, and her friend Cindy "Mac" MacKenzie every bit the
computer hacker as Willow.  Veronica's violence-prone ex-boyfriend
turned Navy fighter pilot Logan Echolls has a passing resemblance
to Buffy bad-boy Angel.  Both Veronica and Buffy wield the English
language as sharply as any other weapon, and both are known to
break the rules to protect their friends.  Finally, both Veronica
and Buffy live in a grim world, where the bright sun of the
California day gives way to evil most foul at night.  There are
even references to Buffy in the script of VERONICA MARS, with a
character at one point mentioning something about a Hellmouth being
under the town of Neptune.

VERONICA MARS is a well-thought out noir thriller that has an
appropriately twisty plot.  Kristen Bell and her friends are fun to
watch, and there is some great comic relief at the expense of some
famous Hollywood figures.  The movie looks a lot better than it
ought to for being made on a $6 million budget and the cast is
excellent.  I'm rating the movie a +2 on the -4 to + 4 scale.
Rated PG-13 for some bad language, a sex scene, and a murder or
two, the movie is fine for older teens and up.  [-dls]

==================================================================

TOPIC: UWANTME2KILLHIM? (film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: Based on actual events, this is a story of how
relationships under the influence of the Internet.  Mark, who is a
reasonably well-adjusted sixteen-year-old, is pulled into a
compelling relationship with Rachel, a girl his age he has never
met.  The two become obsessed with each other and with computer sex
in their typed conversations.  Rachel asks Mark to watch out for
John, her friendless younger brother who happens to be in Mark's
class.  When Mark does that Rachel asks also enlists Mark for help
against Rachel's abusive boy friend.  This is a story that is
driven by Internet connectivity and Britain's surveillance
technology.  UWANTME2KILLHIM? is directed by Andrew Douglas from a
screenplay by Mike Walden.  Walden plays some tricks on the viewer
that are revealed at the end of the film.  Rating: high +1 (-4 to
+4) or 6/10

This film is based on a true story.

In Northern England Mark (played by Jamie Blackley) has been
arrested for murder by the police.  He has nearly killed a man.
Not contrite Mark insists to Detective Inspector Sarah Clayton
(Joanne Froggatt) that he did it for the greater good, and that he
is a hero.  The police have no idea what he is talking about.
Flash back three months.  Mark now is a fairly normal sixteen-year-
old whose social life is half in the real world and half in the
interconnected world of the Internet.  In addition to his real
girlfriend he is also fascinated by a girl he knows only through a
computer screen.  She is Rachel (Jaime Winstone) and Mark is
fascinated with her.  But in some ways she is less than ideal.  She
has a brother John (Toby Regbo) in Mark's class who is an easy mark
for the school bullies.  Rachel herself is bullied by her unwanted
ex-boyfriend, Mingus Johnston as Kevin.  Once involved with
computer sex with Rachel Mark will help her in any way he can.
Soon he is involved in a much bigger game when he is asked to help
out the military intelligence unit MI5.

Mark is only sixteen years old but has enough confidence in himself
to try to do something that should be asked of an adult.  He is
excited and willing to be an agent for MI5.  He may feel some
trepidation, but he wants to go ahead and see if he can be his own
James Bond.  But he does not face the daily torment of bullies the
way John does.  John is quick to reason, but having been
intimidated by the school toughs he lacks his new friend's
confidence.  Between them they have one complete person.

Director Andrew Douglas puts the viewer into the mind of Mark.
Every scene is really from Mark's point of view so the viewer knows
just what he knows when he makes his own decisions.  Unfortunately,
this technique is not sufficient to keep us strictly within Mark's
head.  What he only eventually discovers probably was in the
viewer's mind as a possibility all along.  To some degree the film
looks down on Mark for being slow to understand what was happening.
Still Blackley and Regbo turn in fairly convincing performances as
the two teen leads of the story.  While much of the cast may be
unfamiliar lot of people who do not even know the name of Joanne
Froggatt will recognize her instantly for a different role as Anna
Bates on "Downton Abbey".

When the film is over some viewers may come away feeling that
Douglas and Walton have not strictly followed the rules commonly
followed by cinema.  Viewers may feel they have been intentionally
misled.  Well, they have.  But that can be a directors'
prerogative.  I rate UWANTME2KILLHIM? a high +1 on the -4 to +4
scale or 6/10.

Film Credits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485061/combined

What others are saying:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/u_want_me_2_kill_him/

[-mrl]

==================================================================

TOPIC: Numbers of Things (letter of comment by Dan Cox)

In response to Mark's comments on the number of things in Horatio's
philosophy in the 03/14/14 issue to the MT VOID, Dan Cox writes:

It's true that the set of all sets of integers is uncountably
infinite, but the example, which only contains finite sets, does
not show why.  You can list finite sets the same way you handle
rational numbers:.

Listing non-negative rational numbers:
0,
1,
2, 1/2,
3, 3/2, 2/3, 1/3,
4, 4/3, 3/4, 1/4,
5, 5/2, 5/3, 5/4, 4/5, 3/5, 2/5, 1/5

Listing finite sets of non-negative integers:
empty,
{0},
{1}, {0,1},
{2}, {0,2), {1,2}, {0,1,2},
{3}, {0,3}, {1,3} {0,1,3}, {2,3}, {0,2,3}, {1,2,3}, {0,1,2,3}

Or in rough terms:, with ___ being filled in with either "non-
negative rational numbers" or "sets of non-negative integers"
List all ___ that can be expressed using no integers.
List all ___ that can be expressed using just 0, that have not
already been listed
List all ___ that can be expressed using 0, 1, that have not
already been listed
List all ___ that can be expressed using 0, 1, 2, that have not
already been listed
. . .

So now it's clear what to do with the . . .

To do this, you need to know that each of the sublists generated by
one of the steps contains a finite number of entries for your list.
If one step produces an infinite number of list entries, you would
never reach the step after it, and those entries would not be
assured of a place on the list.  So I cannot, for example, show
that there are countably infinite rational numbers by saying "list
all rational numbers 1/n for n being any integer, list all rational
numbers 2/n for n being any integer, ...".  [-dtc]

Mark responds:

For the sake of brevity I was just giving a simple example where
the power set obviously had different and larger cardinality than
the original finite set had.  Since you have gone to the trouble of
writing it out, I will pass it on.  [-mrl]

==================================================================

TOPIC: ALL IS LOST (letter of comment by Gregory Benford)

In response to Walter Meissner's commentary on ALL IS LOST in the
03/14/14 issue of the MT VOID, Gregory Benford writes:

Liked the ALL IS LOST discussion.  I spotted some seamanship errors
but this is much more detailed.  I too wondered about the meaning
of the end.  [-gb]

==================================================================

TOPIC: Daylight Saving Time (letters of comment by Paul Dormer,
Keith F. Lynch, Peter Trei, and Tim McDaniel)

In response to the comments on Daylight Saving Time in the 03/14/14
issue of the MT VOID, Paul Dormer writes:

Actually had a couple of letters published in the newspaper about
this last week.  Someone had written to the paper to say that start
date for British Summer Time should be brought forward to February
as that "we would get extra hours of daylight".  Well, of course we
wouldn't.  It all depends if you prefer lighter mornings or lighter
evenings.  I prefer the latter, although the line stating that
preference had been edited out of my first letter.

For the record, in the EU currently, BST starts the last Sunday in
March and ends the last Sunday in October.  But, as the letter I
was responding to points out, BST ends about a month after the
vernal equinox, but starts about a week after the spring equinox.
However, there is a further complication that during the winter
solstice, solar noon is getting later.  It confused me the first
year I started work that it was dark in the evening when I was
leaving work my first day, the day after the clocks had gone back,
but was light in the evening when I left work the first week of
February.  [-pd]

Keith F. Lynch responds:

Britain could go back to the Roman system in which there were
always 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night every day.
Sunrise was always at 6 am, sunset was always at 6 pm, and the sun
always crossed the meridian at noon.  The lengths of the hours
varied to ensure this.

I assume by "vernal" you mean "autumnal."

In the United States they keep tampering with the rules.  We've
been on Daylight Saving Time for more than a week, and will remain
on it until November.  And nearly half the references will continue
to call it Daylight Savings Time, plural.

[Re solar noon] Yes, which is why the earliest sunset comes about
two weeks (at least at my latitude) before the longest night, which
in turn comes about two weeks before the latest sunrise.  That's
mostly because Earth's orbit is slightly out of round.  [-kfl]

Paul replies:

[Re the Roman system] Indeed, I made just such a suggestion in this
newsgroup a few years ago and also in another letter to the same
paper about that time.  (I think I called it the church system of
hours.)

As another letter in the paper (not by me) pointed out the problem
for the United Kingdom is its latitude.  The south of England is, I
believe, further north than all of the US apart from Alaska.
Around here in the south of England, it's getting dark in December
around 15:30 (sunset about 15:52) and not getting light until about
08:00.  Scotland and the north of England it's worse.  (I grew up
in the north of England, and still spend many a Christmas there.)
The letter pointed out the Madrid gets 80 minutes more daylight in
December than London.

Mind you, being far north has its advantages at the other end of
the year. I was at a con in Stockholm just before the summer
solstice in 2011 and I was on a panel at 22:00 one night - in a
room lit by daylight.

[Re vernal vs. autumnal] I did indeed.  Thinking one thing, typing
another.

[Re rule tampering] They do here, although now I believe the date
is synchronised over the whole EU.  Indeed, even the hour is
synchronised.

Currently, BST starts last Sunday in March, but it didn't use to
be.  I'm pretty sure that the 1989 Eastercon was the first time
that the clock change took part during the convention, something
that has happened quite regularly since.  And the 2008 Eastercon
was the first one held entirely in GMT, as Easter was very early
that year.

And then there was the three-year experiment of British Standard
Time from 1968 to 1971 when we were an hour ahead of GMT all year
round.  Very dark mornings in the north.  When I was at school the
first lesson of the day was conducted with the lights on and it was
dark outside, and when I started university I remember taking the
bus in from my hall of residence for the first lecture of the day
when it was still dark.  [-pd]

Peter Trei writes:

I'm sure employers would love [the Roman system] in the summer, and
hate in the winter; hourly employees the other way around.

Daylight savings time only makes sense in mid-latitudes; its basic
goal is to align people's wakeful periods with when the sun it up;
since few people these days get up earlier than 5 AM, sunlight
earlier than that is 'wasted', while the evenings get dark earlier
than they would with DST.

This only makes sense in mid-latitudes.  Near the equator, there
isn't enough seasonal variation to bother about, and at high
latitudes, daylight extends so far into both ends of 'night' that
you don't have to move wakefulness to keep it in daylight at
morning and evening.

When I lived in Sweden, I'd take a flashlight to find my way to the
school bus stop in winter. In summer, night came only while I
slept.  Window blinds there were very well engineered--they were
needed.  [-pt]

Keith adds:

Is the whole EU in one time zone?  If not, does everyone change
their clock simultaneously, or at the same local clock time
wherever they are?  In the US, it's the latter.  (A few states or
parts of states opt out of Daylight Saving Time entirely, but none
choose a different time or date to begin or end it.)  The 48
coterminous US states span four time zones.

I don't recall which convention or which year, but I do remember
being at a con during "spring forward."  The concom had fun with
that, scheduling some very weird panels for the nonexistent hour.

It's interesting how Easter wanders around.  Easter computation was
one of the first computer programs I ever wrote.  It was then that
I discovered that, barring early death or radical life extension,
it would land on my birthday exactly twice.  Both those Easters are
now in the past.

Speaking of time zones, I see in today's news that Crimea has
switched to Moscow's time zone.  [-kfl]

Peter responds:

I'm surprised to see that most of Europe *is* one time zone.
Central European time holds nearly all of Western Europe, and the
nearest column of Eastern European countries--the WE exceptions are
Britain, Ireland, Portugal, and Iceland in the west, and Finland
and Greece in the east.  All between are CST.  [-pt]

Tim McDaniel adds:

Look at the longitudes.  Today, I happened on a map overlaying an
outline of US over western and central Europe (on reddit, maybe?),
with the comment "I didn't realize that all of [European
continental] World War II took place in an area about the size of
the US South".

Warsaw is at longitude 21 E and Madrid at 3 W, and one hour is 15
degrees of longitude, so Central European Time is somewhat wider
than average but not unduly so--time zone boundaries do expand if
convenience is seen for it, but it's not to the extent of China,
for example.  [-tmcd]

Paul elaborates:

No, France, Germany, etc. are on CET, on hour ahead of GMT (two
hours in summer).  And I think further east, another hour.

But the change is, I believe, at the same time across the EU--01:00
GMT, both in spring and autumn.

After posting yesterday, I looked up the Wikipedia entry on British
Summer Time but that doesn't seem to have the details of when the
clocks changed historically, only that it is synchronised over the
EU.  The talk page has someone posting that they were not aware
that the hour of change had moved from 02:00 GMT to 01:00 GMT and
then, looking at the relevant law cited in the article, assumed
that this change was made in 2002. (Used to be that 02:00 GMT
became 03:00 BST.)

But I was on the committee of the 1989 Eastercon and I recall that
we too decided to schedule a non-existent event for the missing
hour and even back then it was 01:00-02:00.  I assume that change
was also part of the EU synchronisation.  [-pd]

==================================================================

TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)

LONGBOURN by Jo Baker (ISBN 978-0-385-35123-2) is the "downstairs"
version of the time period in Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
(To emphasize this, each chapter begins with a quote from the
Austen novel which tells the reader during what situation described
by Austen the chapter takes place.)  In this, the Bennets are the
supporting characters, and the servants take center stage.  The
main character is Sarah, housemaid to the Bennets, and the focus is
on her relationships with the Bennet's new footman, James Smith,
and the Bingley's footman, Ptolemy.  Much has been made of how
Austen wrote her novels without ever touching on the major
historical events and issues of the time, and Baker makes up for
this by covering the Napoleonic War, the impact of the Industrial
Revolution, and slavery in the economics of the West Indies.
Ptolemy is an ex-slave, which in itself says something about
Bingley, because when he brought a slave with him when he returned
from the West Indies, the slave was automatically freed as soon as
they landed in England.  But if Bingley's character is heightened
by Baker's version, Wickham turns out to be even more sleazy than
in Austen's book, and even Mr. Bennet turns out to have some dark
secrets in his past.

Baker writes in a modern style, not the Georgian style of Austen.
She also deals with matters than Austen can only allude to (e.g.,
Lydia's loss of virginity before marriage), or cannot even hint at
(e.g., washing out menstrual rags).  This may make the book more
realistic, and obviously the servants deal with the realities of
life more directly than the gentry, but I cannot say it makes the
book more enjoyable.  This is certainly worth reading once if you
are a fan of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, but it does not warrant the
regular re-reading that Austen's work does.

THE RIDDLE OF THE LABYRINTH: THE QUEST TO CRACK AN ANCIENT CODE by
Margalit Fox is the story of the discovery and eventual
decipherment of Linear B.  The three main characters are Arthur
Evans, Alice Kober, and Michael Ventris: Evans discovered the
tablets, Kober made the majority of the breakthroughs in
deciphering them, and Ventris used Kober's work to finish the job.

There are parallels to the Rosalyn Franklin story: just as Franklyn
did a lot of the work on discovering DNA but James Watson and
Francis Crick got all the credit, so Kober made giant strides in
deciphering Linear B but Ventris got all the credit.  In both
cases, the omission was in part due to the gender of the person but
also in part because both Franklyn and Kober died before they could
finish the job.  And in both cases, there is now a belated attempt
to correct the oversight.

Fox does a good job of explaining *how* Kober "cracked" the code.
For example, she explains how Kober determined that Linear B was an
inflected language, based on charting relative positions of
syllables in words (and this in spite of the inflection often
changing the final syllable of the base word!).  After reading
Fox's description, I feel that I understand it, even though there
is no chance I could ever do it myself.

Fox also describes some of Kober innovative scientific techniques,
such as her use of homemade "punch cards" to keep track of relative
positions in words of the various syllables and all of which
syllables are adjacent to which others.  (For this, she says in a
letter, "I did in on the little slide rule I just bought to hasten
the arithmetic I'll have to do."  I would bet that most people
would not have thought the decipherment of Linear B involved slide
rules.)

For those interested in archaeology, languages, ciphers, or how
science is done, this is a must-read book.  [-ecl]

==================================================================

                                           Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net


           Things that upset a terrier may pass virtually
           unnoticed by a Great Dane.
                                           --Smiley Blanton