naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #2
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
orthoxerox
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1yr ago
On the gripping hand
As an aside, how many people using this phrase have actually read the eponymous book? I picked the practice from the Wiki (the Wiki, the original one), but I haven't read anything by Niven other than the first few Ringworld novels. This reminds me of people that use "clay" when discussing about territorial claims without realizing it comes from polandball comics.
I dunno how common it is to use the phrase without being familiar with the book. At least in my case, I read the first two, though I haven't gotten around to Outies.
The phrase was important enough in the story to be the title and a central conceit of the second book, but the Moties series never had the cultural niche of Ringworld, even among scifi fans. While the phrase itself ended up in the Jargon File (and without a lot of the important context), it's kinda important to the series and the phrase's early use among hackers that it be not just the third item in a list, but that it also represent something unexpected or breaking from a false belief of only two options.
The Mote In God's Eye is much weaker as a character story, but I'd argue it's better as speculative fiction than Known Space series. And I say that not just as a specific critique of genetic luck or the Fruit of Life stuff.
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Notes -
As an aside, how many people using this phrase have actually read the eponymous book? I picked the practice from the Wiki (the Wiki, the original one), but I haven't read anything by Niven other than the first few Ringworld novels. This reminds me of people that use "clay" when discussing about territorial claims without realizing it comes from polandball comics.
I dunno how common it is to use the phrase without being familiar with the book. At least in my case, I read the first two, though I haven't gotten around to Outies.
The phrase was important enough in the story to be the title and a central conceit of the second book, but the Moties series never had the cultural niche of Ringworld, even among scifi fans. While the phrase itself ended up in the Jargon File (and without a lot of the important context), it's kinda important to the series and the phrase's early use among hackers that it be not just the third item in a list, but that it also represent something unexpected or breaking from a false belief of only two options.
The Mote In God's Eye is much weaker as a character story, but I'd argue it's better as speculative fiction than Known Space series. And I say that not just as a specific critique of genetic luck or the Fruit of Life stuff.
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