Ow! That hurts.

Jan

Then he should steal it back! The university would probably not even notice. He will appreciate his thesis much more than they would, and there is no use spending the rest of your life crying over something you can rectify. (If he is too lawful-good for that, then steal the original, print out a copy on regular paper, photoshop the university's approval stamps, and smuggle the faux-copy back onto the shelves, where it will collect dust for all eternity.)

I learned Middle English so that I could write a poem in it. Eventually, a friend who teaches ME surfaced from oblivion and I sent a copy of my poem to him. He said nice things (though he did have some suggestion on my word choice).

Jan, has some Viking in her

I can grok that.

Glad you mentioned Asimov.

No way, you say trekkie, I say trekker ....
Anyone rationally seeking knowledge of the unknown is welcome!

You know how to kill a marine right? Throw sand at a block wall and yell charge the beach! Just kidding. My father was a marine.

You must be kidding everyone I knew read Lord of the Rings when I was a kid. Tolkien was a absolute master.

I'm so out of touch I didn't even know there was such a discussion going on. I was happy being a Trekkie. Should I hang my head in shame?

They did make the marines come across as a bunch of murderous dolts.

I'm impressed that you have read The Lord of the Rings. I doubt that most people had ever heard of it until the movies started coming out. I struggled through the silmarillion too. I even have the deluxe edition books. I think Jackson is doing a great job of finding or building sets just like I envisioned them. I've got a buddy back in Atlanta with a masters degree in middle ages English (I had no idea there was such a degree). He wrote his thesis in middle ages English and even printed it on parchment and had it bound. Then he found out that the university kept all of their work. He still weeps uncontrollably when he thinks about it.

Thanks I will check it out!!

Try to find "The Stars my Destination". It's got some gaps in the script moving along smoothly, but it sure got my mind thinking about one more thing I wish was real. Van Voight I think. Pardon the spelling if I did it wrong.

Asimov's three laws of robotics have been used in many other stories by other authors. They've become almost a common fact of robotics. I wasn't too impressed with the movie with Will Smith in it. I don't think the script writer delved deep enough into what they are. Asimov loved to come up with ways to beat around the laws.

You are awesome Puzzle Lady! No wonder you Doohan was oogling you!

Cliques suck. I've noticed a lot of them at the conventions Bob and I go to, and a lot of the people in these cliques will pretend to be friends with you, but the moment you say or do one tiny little thing they don't like, they shun you, or they make a big production out of booting you out of their little club. I hate jerks like that.

I mentioned Asimov. It's cool you've met all those people. I have not even seen them in person.

I love the Foundation series. I was thinking about it the other day when someone talked about a Gulch in an obscure place, like the edge of the galaxy in Foundation. I imagined the founders knowing that the Gulch would grow if it maintained liberty and in stages it would face a series of crises as it went from a joke, to something making money to be looted, to a reigional power, and beyond.

Profoundly yes, I'm in. The concepts that flowed from the mind of the Great Bird of the Galaxy are still an inoculation against the dementia of internecine destructiveness endemic in the human race.

Oh, yes, and I met Scotty at a convention, who delightfully flirted with me. Sigh.

I am also an enormous fan of "2001" and Arthur C. Clarke's opus. I have some personal correspondences with Sir Arthur spanning a few years. (Pardon the name-dropping.)

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Isaac Asimov as part of the sci-fi pantheon, considering his volume of writing dwarves all the others. His Foundation series bears mention and praise. I met him at several conventions.

Great work has been done by other sci-fi giants such as Star Wars and Babylon 5. But Star Trek rules.

Plus 1 for you, too, Jan. Roddenberry's vision was daring and passionate. Disguising it in science fiction was the only medium to bring it into the culture. Every episode was a parable, a morality lesson that the thoughtful viewer could carry over into the real world. Watching a Star Trek episode for me was always a transcendental intellectual experience. May reruns run in perpetuity for the younger generation to get inspiration. And may the Franchise remain ever in the hands of those true to the original vision.

Heinlein's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" at one point has someone ask the hero, "Are you a Randite?" Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Roddenberry were the great visionaries of a rational human civilization.

I still occasionally play the FASA Star Trek RPG with a group of friends.

We all enjoy that, me most of all. I wind up running the game so I am not restricted to one character, I get to play all the NPCs. Its a bit of work, but its also a ton of fun.

Another great analogy/metaphor from Thor. Right on.

Bleh! I can run DOS pretty well in a shell, but 95 is a mess. XP still works ok.

PC, win 95/XP.

Although MS managed to make the "reverse compatibility" a gold plated exercise in frustration if you are more than 2 OS versions ahead. So it would take some serious tweaking to work on Win7 and I don't know if it will work on Win8 at all.

I would like to see the next president rescind all prior executive orders. Now that would be great! I really don't like daylight savings time!

Indeed. A lot has changed. It would be good if people stopped acting like it hadn't.