John Crowley's Blog, page 15

Captcha the Flag

I apologize to all Anonymous commenters here, and hope they will not be discouraged, but after getting 62 (!) anonymous comments on a recent post, all of them spam, I have decided to ask anonymous posters to resolve a Captcha in order to comment.  I have recently heard that Captcha is far from foolproof and (some say) ineffectual altogether.  No doubt some posters here have opinions.  But for the moment, these fragments I have shored against my ruins.

War Story

For the 10th anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom:

A month or so into the shooting war, I heard an NPR broadcast in which a breathless reporter in Iraq announced that a warehouse full of Scud missiles with what could only be atomic warheads for them stored offsite. Teams were on their way to secure the site and certify the weapons. I was rather downcast -- I'd begun to expect nothing would be found. I listened on and off through the day for the followup. Nothing, No mention of the Scuds or the warheads ever came again.

Anyone else remember that?

Yahoops

Why suddenly does typing a search into the top slot in Google bring up a Yahoo search page? How did Yahoo manage that?  And why by the way do high-tech inventions always have to have goofy names, as though they were sugary snacks or snap-together toys?  Actually I don't need that question answered, only the first.  

Vikings

Many interesting obwservations and insights about Vikings, but the most shocking revelation comes last.

http://news.yale.edu/2013/03/08/vikings-yale-historian-looks-myths-vs-history?utm_source=YNemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=yn-03-12-13

Next we'll be told that the ancient Scots didn't wear tartans!

Let Alone Let Alone

It seems to me I have been seeing this formulation more often in public (virtual) prints.  This example from David Brooks's column today about America's coming dominance in gas and oil production:

“OPEC will find it challenging to survive another 60 years, let alone another decade,” Edward Morse, Citigroup’s researcher, told CNBC.

Tell me this is not backward.  The more extreme instance ought to be the one you must let alone, if even the less extreme is speculative. "Another decade, let alone 60 years."  I suppose if rapidity of threat to survival is the measure, then a decade is the greater reach.  Even so the formulation is wrong.  "Another sixty years, perhaps not even so much as another decade" avoids being, well, wrong.

Luckier Peach

For those wanting more weird food notions from Lucky Peach and me and Chris Adrian:

http://lky.ph/post/44555539606/interview-john-crowley-and-chris-adrian

crowleycrow @ 2013-03-10T10:33:00

I may have noted/plugged/announced this before here or elsewhere -- or, just as likely, not -- but if you scroll down you'll see I'm teaching a mini-session about SF and fantasy writing. Class is filling fast -- apply today.

http://summer.yale.edu/ywc

Person of Interest

Of what old-time crime fighting story series does Person of Interest remind me?  I can't help thinking that sometime in the early 20th c. there was a similar setup, with a stay-at-home tech guy with a range of apparatus and another on-the-street guy who did the rough stuff, and they chose their own crimes to solve, which seemed mostly rather ordinary given all the resources they had.  (It's NOT Nero Wolfe -- he just stayed home with his orchids and pondered.  This was high-tech marvel stuff).  Any thoughts?  Am I supposing their ought to have been such a setup back then though there wasn't?

My good weekend on the mat

Glad to be a part of the obviously vibrant Amateur Wresting scene!

http://awn.theopenmat.com/tag/john-crowley/

Head in the Cloud

I am experimenting with Cloud storage, programs that will sync to my computer, save and update files so that I can access them from any computer, and have any changes I make reflected when I access the same file at home. So far I've examined Moby Stash, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive (I'm a Windows user.) It would seem that all of them require me to create a file structure in the cloud and then put the files I want into that file structure. Is there one where I can just mark files in any place on my home computer and have the cloud space recognize/collect them and record the changes?  I feel odd about basically tucking all the files I might want to change on my (new) travel computer in a single folder.