Entries feed for zunger

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201512/the-good-enough-parent-is-the-best-parent

The best parent is not the one who parents most, and certainly not the one who parents least, but the one who parents just the right amount. "Good enough parents" strive to....

http://www.tor.com/2015/12/22/cat-cosplaying-as-captain-phasma/

http://www.tor.com/?p=200325

Has everyone see The Force Awakens? Well, whether you have or not, we present this non-spoilery Captain Pawsma, the Cat Cosplay take on Gwendoline Christie’s Captain Phasma! Now, we can’t encourage you to put an awesome shiny uniform on your own kitty, because we have no idea if your kitty will stand for it, but we can encourage you to gaze at this gorgeous feline. You can see more shots of Pawsma, plus kitties dressed as Ewoks, kitties dressed as Kylo Ren, kitties dressed as Kylo Ren in a Santa hat, and even a kitty Rick Sanchez over at Cat Cosplay’s Tumblr!

[via Cat Cosplay!]

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201512/neurosciences-new-consciousness-theory-is-spiritual

Does it feel like anything to be a beetle? How about a plant or a computer? One theory posits that consciousness exists wherever information is being integrated—and is measurable.

http://feeds.nature.com/~r/news/rss/most_recent/~3/ps96Tq1NfyI/529014a

Space missions, carbon capture and gravitational waves are set to shape the year.

Nature 529 14 doi: 10.1038/529014a

http://feeds.nature.com/~r/news/rss/most_recent/~3/YIpXOk0dgds/528445a

Researchers have big hopes for Kirsty Duncan, the country’s newly appointed scientist-turned-science minister.

Nature 528 445 doi: 10.1038/528445a

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scotusblog/pFXs/~3/HK_emxiLDIo/

http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=236265

Briefly:

• Sam Baker of National Journal suggests that, if “you want to know why the Su­preme Court is poised to strike a ma­jor blow to af­firm­at­ive ac­tion, fo­cus­ing on Ant­on­in Scalia’s com­ments about black stu­dents and ‘slower-track’ uni­versit­ies might be miss­ing the point.”
• At LinkedIn Pulse, Dawinder Sidhu considers how the Supreme Court should address calls from federal courts of appeals for “an updated approach to the Thirteenth Amendment.”
• At NFIB, Luke Wake discusses a petition for certiorari that the Pacific Legal Foundation filed on behalf of “a small business property owner who was denied the opportunity to raise a takings claim in federal court, notwithstanding the fact that the state courts in Connecticut had already demonstrated a lack of concern for their asserted federal rights.”

[Correction:  An earlier version of this post referred to a petition for certiorari filed by the National Federation of Independent Business, but the petition was in fact filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation.]

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=22973

I would like to call the attention of Language Log readers to an extraordinary article by Nikhil Sonnad:

"The long, incredibly tortuous, and fascinating process of creating a Chinese font " (Quartz, 12/18/15)

I knew that Nikhil was writing this article, because I helped him with the part about the historical development of the script over a month ago.  After that I didn't hear anything from him until yesterday when he sent me notice that the article had just been published.  Now that I've had a chance to read Nikhil's article, I must say that it a unique and amazing accomplishment.

Most people seem to think that designing a Chinese font is not particularly difficult.  Just figure out what you want the basic strokes* to look like, then combine them as required and, presto digito! you effortlessly can produce 7,000 or 13,000 or 80,000 characters as you wish.

Sorry, folks, that's not the way it works.  Because the proportions and sizes of the strokes change depending upon their placement, each character has to be designed individually from the ground up.  This explains why there are so few Chinese fonts compared to the mind-boggling array of fonts that are available for alphabetical scripts.  By going to the people who actually do the tedious work of drawing each character, Nikhil demonstrates (with ample, effective illustrations) how new Chinese fonts are created.

The sharp disparity between the complexity of Chinese fonts compared to Western fonts is brought out in this sentence from the article:

An experienced designer, working alone, can in under six months create a new font that covers dozens of Western languages. For a single Chinese font it takes a team of several designers at least two years.

I consider Nikhil's article to be an awesome achievement.  So far as I am aware, there is no other comparable journalistic presentation of what is involved in the creation of a Chinese font from beginning to end.  Not only is it thorough and detailed in its coverage of the technical and graphical aspects of the design and production of Chinese fonts, it is also learned in its comparison with similar tasks in the creation of Western fonts.  Highly recommended for anyone who is interested in typography.

—————-

*As to how many basic strokes there are, most people would say that there are somewhere between 6 and 8, usually no more than 10 — it all depends on how you count them — though some people even claim that there are as many as 30 different strokes, but most of those beyond 10 are merely variants of the few main types.  It is often claimed that the character yǒng 永 includes all / most of the basic strokes / elements of Chinese characters, but even here contention reigns, since standard authorities claim that it only has five strokes.

[Partially quoting myself from "Stroke order inputting " (10/30/11)]

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/marginalrevolution/feed/~3/0w9dooxjwiY/death-trends.html

http://marginalrevolution.com/?p=67325

So, once you get past the mood affiliation, where is the big story?

Link here.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Sfsignal/~3/8EYEq-qj1EU/

http://www.sfsignal.com/?p=131482

REVIEW SUMMARY: Slick, professional, and engaging, the latest chapter of the popular space opera is an enjoyable picture that bogs down in nostalgia and setup.

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: Scavenger Rey and escaped Stormtrooper team up with Resistance Forces to locate missing Jedi Luke Skywalker before First Order troops led by Kylo Ren.

MY REVIEW:
PROS: Outstanding young cast, notably Daisy Ridley as Rey and John Boyega as Finn; energetic pace, with strong action sequences; initially fond looks of nostalgia…
CONS: …that become grating as the movie progresses; derivative story that feels far too familiar; unanswered questions that almost demand a sequel; occasionally feels far more like a setup for future installments than an actual movie.

Awakens, indeed.  For many, the only real question surrounding Star Wars: The Force Awakens is whether or not it avoids the obvious narcolepsy-inducing traps that mired George Lucas’s middle trilogy: tedious, nonsensical political arguments that even the contemporary Republican presidential hopefuls would find childish; dull-witted spiritual pontifications that would make Deepak Chopra raise his credulous brow in incredulity; ethnically stereotyped aliens that would make the most ardent World War II–era propagandist wince.  And this before covering their myriad story and basic filmmaking problems.  Do we even need to mention how many movies have provided other, more relevant takes on similar space opera material since 20th Century Fox first released Star Wars (none of this A New Hope nonsense; I am a purist) in 1977?

So the quick answer is yes, the seventh episode of one of film’s most beloved film franchises avoids those pitfalls.  Even better, it turns out to be the strongest entry since Darth Vader enveloped Han Solo into a block of carbonite in The Empire Strikes Back.  If you have been with the series since its first release, not fawning over it proves difficult, especially when it get a number of things right that most of the series got wrong.

That said, objectively one wishes it matched the series at its highest point.  Director J. J. Abrams provides many opportunities for audiences to embrace their inner nine-year-old, but somewhere between hyperspace sequences the movie loses some of its steam, causing more astute viewers to notice the narrative’s more obvious problems, to say nothing of the redundant (if not downright recursive) feeling one get throughout the proceedings.  We traveled to this galaxy far, far away, and heard these stories a long time ago; we may crave the new, yet seem impelled to return here.  Star Wars itself borrowed heavily from previous movies (made by such disparate talents as Akira Kurosawa, Fritz Lang, and Leni Riefenstahl), though it did not have the ability to draw on its own decades-long history.  The callbacks (from the opening crawl and the return of the Millennium Falcon to the huge swaths Abrams, along with screenwriters Michael Arndt and Lucasfilm veteran Lawrence Kasdan cut from storycloth itself) elicit affection initially, though as the movie progresses they begin to grate.

It matters little, however, because Abrams keeps our attention on so many things that he dares us not to enjoy it.  There are quests to enjoin: some decades after the events of Return of the Jedi, Resistance pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) hides the location of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), the last Jedi, in the spherical body of the droid BB-8 as First Order (successor to the Empire) troops led by Sith wannabe Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) orders the slaughter of villagers on the planet Jakku, taking Dameron hostage.  One Stormtrooper, whom Dameron later nicknames Finn (John Boyega), develops a crisis of conscience during this interstellar Mai Lai, rousing the suspicions of the chrome-armored Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christine) and General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson).  Meanwhile, BB-8 comes into contact with scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley), who befriends BB-8 and decides, through a series of events, to undertake the Hero’s Journey and deliver Skywalker’s location to the resistance.

If the story sounds familiar, it is; in fact, Lucas told the same story in the first movie.  In fact, the nods to the previous series at times undercut the proceedings.  A rush to board a ship during an air raid sends Rey and Finn to the Millennium Falcon, eliciting a chuckle, but the appearance of Han Solo (Harrison Ford, who looks more engaged here than he did in the last Indiana Jones movie) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), while pleasing, also bring forth the movie’s key problem: so much of it is derivative.  Yes, we revisit old friends (including Carrie Fisher as General Leia Organa), but at the expense of learning as much as we could about the new characters.  Where does the orphan (yes, another orphan) Rey come from?  We receive glimpses, but these are only teased.  Additionally, at times the motives remain unclear.  After his crisis of conscience, Finn decides to liberate Poe from capture and leave the First Order’s service because “it’s the right thing to do.”  Perhaps, yet his decision seems rushed and unconvincing, especially for somebody born to be a soldier.  What led Ren to embrace the Dark Side of the Force and serve Supreme Leader Snoke?  We will have to wait for future installments to find out.

Which presents another key issue: much of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, feels like setup for the next chapter.  While it remains a complete movie, the fact Disney already has slated sequels makes everything feel underwritten.  For the most part, Abrams makes up for this by keeping the pace energetic (though it falters when Solo and Chewbacca appear) and the humor deft without being corny. The picture moves well if at times too quickly, as if Abrams didn’t quite trust his material, yet somehow doesn’t quite feel right.  The earlier movies hearkened back to the period of the movie serial, while Abrams, who in previous movies saw himself as a modern-day Spielberg, keeps his directorial feet firmly in the present day.  He understands the material’s substance, but not its style.

Fortunately, Abrams also works with a strong cast, notably Daisy Ridley, who cuts an amazing heroic pose for Rey.  Boyega works incredibly well with Ridley; their scenes together crackle with chemistry and dialogue, making them a kind of Tracy-Hepburn for the 21st century.  Oscar Isaac receives too little screen time, but he stands as a kind of matinee idol in his scenes.  Adam Driver spends far too much time hidden beneath a mask and robes, yet his Kylo Ren still offers a character both sympathetic and menacing.  Others, from Lupita Nyong’o as the pirate Maz Kanata to Gwendoline Chistine’s Captain Phasma, play their roles well despite being underused.  The only real unfortunate note is Gleeson; a fine actor, he simply cannot erase the memory of Peter Cushing’s Governor Tarkin.

Perhaps the only real requirement for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was to make one forget its predecessors, a kind of cinematic Jedi mind trick.  That it certainly manages.  It maintains the energy and fun we expect, even if it ultimately offers nothing new.  Perhaps the next movie will take more chances.  For now, we at least can enjoy a new chapter without reservation.

The post THE FORCE AWAKENS is a Derivative Yet Engaging Entry in the STAR WARS Canon appeared first on SF Signal
Copyright © SF Signal

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Sfsignal/~3/l0VXEanP0IA/

http://www.sfsignal.com/?p=131560

Right now, you can get the eBook versions of Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck or the anthology ODD? edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer for the low, low price of $2.99 each!

Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck

“I have never read anything like Jagannath. Karin Tidbeck’s imagination is recognizably Nordic, but otherwise unclassifiable–quietly, intelligently, unutterably strange. And various. And ominous. And funny. And mysteriously tender. These are wonderful stories.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

“Restrained and vivid, poised and strange, Tidbeck, with her impossible harmonies, is a vital voice.” – China Mieville

Enter the strange and wonderful world of Swedish sensation Karin Tidbeck with this feast of darkly fantastical short stories. Whether through the falsified historical record of the uniquely weird Swedish creature known as the “Pyret” or the title story, “Jagannath,” about a biological ark in the far future, Tidbeck’s unique imagination will enthrall, amuse, and unsettle you. How else to describe a collection that includes “Cloudberry Jam,” a story that opens with the line “I made you in a tin can”? Marvels, quirky character studies, and outright surreal monstrosities await you in the book widely praised by Ursula K. Le Guin, China Mieville, and Karen Joy Fowler. Introduction by Elizabeth Hand, afterword by the author. (Print version available in November.)

“Tidbeck has a gift for the uncanny and the unsettling. In these wonderful, subtle stories, magic arrives quietly. It comes from the forests or the earth or was always there in your own family or maybe exists in another realm entirely…leaving you slightly dazed and more than a little enchanted.” – Karen Joy Fowler

“Were this collection to contain only its biomechanoid wonder of a title story, it would still be amazing. Jagannath heralds the arrival of a bold and brilliant new voice, which I see too few of these days. You must read Karin Tidbeck.” – Caitlin R. Kiernan

“In Karin Tidbeck’s collection Jagannath, the mundane becomes strange and the strange familiar with near-Hitchcockian subtlety. I loved Tidbeck’s clean, classic prose. It creates beautifully eerie music for a twilight domain.” – Karen Lord

“I can’t think of when I last read a collection that blew me away the way that Jagannath has, or one that’s left me somewhat at a loss to describe just how strange and beautiful and haunting these tales are.” – Elizabeth Hand (from her introduction)

ODD? edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

ODD?, a new anthology series devoted to eclectic fiction, usually with a fantastical, horrific, magic realist, or surrealist approach. You might also call it strange or even weird. But as the subtitle of “Is it odd or are you too normal?” suggests, “odd” is a truly subjective evaluation. One person’s “what the heck?!” is another person’s “eh—saw that yesterday.”

Each volume will contain reprints (some of them not available otherwise except in expensive limited editions), previously unpublished stories, and new translations of classic and hard-to-find stories. We are committed to bringing you odd material from all over the world, from the past one hundred years, all of it bound together simply by dint of being idiosyncratic, unusual, out-of-the-ordinary.

Here’s the full table of contents:

1. Ann & Jeff VanderMeer – Introduction
2. Amos Tutuola – “The Dead Babies”
3. Gustave Le Rouge – “The War of the Vampires” (translation by Brian Evenson and David Beus)
4. Jeffrey Ford – “Weiroot”
5. Leopoldo Lugones – “The Bloat Toad” (translation by Larry Nolen)
6. Mark Samuels – “Apt 205”
7. Michael Cisco – “Modern Cities Exist Only to Be Destroyed”
8. Nalo Hopkinson – “Slow Cold Chick”
9. Sumanth Prabhaker – “A Hard Truth About Waste Management”
10. Hiromi Goto – “Stinky Girl”
11. Eric Basso – “Logues”
12. Edward Morris – “Lotophagi”
13. Karin Tidbeck – “The Aunts”
14. Jeffrey Thomas – “The Fork”
15. Rikki Ducornet – “The Volatilized Ceiling of Baron Munodi”
16. Leena Krohn – “The Night of the Normal Distribution Curve” (translation by Anna Volmari and J. Robert Tupasela)
17. Amanda le Bas de Plumetot – “Unmaking”
18. Karl Hans Strobl – “The Head” (translation by Gio Clairval)
19. Caitlin R. Kiernan – “A Child’s Guide to the Hollow Hills”
20. Stacey Levine – “Sausage”
21. Danny Fontaine & Jeff VanderMeer – “Myster Odd Theme Song”

I’m told this deal is good through the end of the year (and possibly as long as January 10th), but why wait? Grab Jagannath and ODD? right now!

The post eBook Deal: Get Karin Tidbeck’s JAGANNATH and the ODD? Anthology Edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer for Only $2.99 Each! appeared first on SF Signal
Copyright © SF Signal

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Sfsignal/~3/v6mJsMfoK8o/

http://www.sfsignal.com/?p=130988

The winner of our giveaway for all 3 book in Jay Allan’s Far Star Trilogy has been chosen and notified.

Congratulations to: Matthew W.!

You will be receiving your prize soon!

Thanks to everyone who entered.

The post WINNER: Jay Allan’s FAR STAR TRILOGY appeared first on SF Signal
Copyright © SF Signal

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Sfsignal/~3/4ueetteOImM/

http://www.sfsignal.com/?p=131484

The folks at Liminality: A Magazine of Speculative Poetry shared the table of contents of their new issue. If you’d like to support Liminality, they have subscriptions available at their website.

• Editorial – Shira Lipkin and Mattie Joiner
• “Dionysus of the Downtown” – Lev Mirov
• “White: Outside of Color” – Nikk Wassermann
• “How to be something not real” – Lore Graham
• “Changeling Manifesto” – Kayla Bashe
• “Angiogenesis” – Margarita Tenser
• “My Own Lightning” – Mary Alexandra Agner
• “swan” – Nolan Liebert
• “What to Do With a Photosynthetic Lover” – Rohinton Daruwala
• “Desert Mermaid” – Sandi Leibowitz
• “Changeling” – Lynette Mejía
• “The Selkie Before Summer” – Penny Stirling
• “If You Find Me Out” – Toby MacNutt

The post Table of Contents: Liminality Issue #6 (Winter 2015/2016) appeared first on SF Signal
Copyright © SF Signal

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Sfsignal/~3/eZ2bvBTCVCU/

http://www.sfsignal.com/?p=131553

Interviews & Profiles

• Lawrence M. Schoen interviews A.M. Dellamonica.
• TIME interviews Gillian Anderson.
• Michael Swanwick interviews Kaja and Phil Foglio.
• Civilian Reader interviews Guy Haley.
• Word Horde interviews John Langan.
• The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction interviews Norman Birnbach.
• Bull Spec interviews Okla Elliott and Raul Clement.

News

• RIP Gerard Quinn, One of the Pioneers of British Science Fiction Art.
• Historic Landing of Falcon 9 First Stage at Landing Zone 1. [Thanks, Eddie!]

Articles

• Adventures Fantastic on Blogging Leigh Brackett: “The Vanishing Venusians”.
• Alternative Nation lists Top Ten Star Wars Rip Offs And Cash Ins.
• Ars Technica on Hating parts of Star Trek is an essential part of loving Star Trek.
• Bibliotropic on 10 SFF Books I’m Excited About in 2016.
• Blastr lists 43 movie posters from 2015, ranked from worst to best.
• Brit Mandelo on The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2015.
• Bustle on 9 Books To Read If You Like Outlander. [via Paul Di Filippo]
• Genevieve Valentine on Gods of Egypt: A Three-Act Tragedy.
• GQ on The 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2015.
• HuffPo on 40 Unforgivable Plot Holes in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
• io9 lists The Very Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Books Of 2015.
• Kristin King on The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2015.
• Laird Barron on Five for 2015.
• Marc Turner lists 5 Tactics to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse… And Why They Wouldn’t Work.
• Omnivoracious on Reading the Star Wars: The Force Awakens Novelization [No Spoilers!].
• Panels on Captain Marvel: A Carol Danvers Primer.
• Polenth Blake and Bogi Takács on Gender, Sex, and Sexuality in SF: A Conversation.
• Sanford Allen asks Patrice Sarath, John Picacio, Renee Babcock, Nicky Drayden, Lee Thomas, Patrick Sullivan, Lawrence Person, Benjamin Cartwright, Scott A. Cupp, Joe McKinney, and Eugene Fischer: What’s your favorite holiday-themed sf/fantasy/horror.
• TIME lists The Most Anticipated Movies of 2016.

Art

• The Del Rey Star Wars covers of Ralph McQuarrie, Part 2.
• Star Wars an Art Odyssey – Le Café Pixel, Marseille.
• Cover Art: Romulus Buckle, Max the Martian, and Lieutenant Sabrina Serafim from The Chronicles of the Pneumatic Zeppelin, by Daniela Giubellini.
• Ancient Order, Adam Burn.
• Star Wars, Murat Gül.
• CHIMBO LOST, Eduardo Pena.
• A livid hue by MarcelaBolivar.
• Astronaut | Y&R Mexico.
• Curse exists by Lukasz Wiktorzak.
• Cool Star Wars Mobile Wallpapers.
• Old Ways by Hardy Fowler.

More Fun Stuff

• Read an Excerpt from Daughter of Blood by Helen Lowe.
• Free Fiction: “Fragmented” by Andrew Liptak.
• Edward Willett sings “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”.
• The Box Office Awakens Infographic.
• Sculptor Creates a Laser Equipped Post-Apocalyptic Thomas the Tank Engine Hexapod Robot.
• A Woman Put Together a Star Trek Starfleet Uniform Outfit Seemingly by Accident.

The post [SF/F/H Link Post] Gender, Sex & Sexuality in SF; Unforgivable Plot Holes in THE FORCE AWAKENS; Hating STAR TREK Essential to Loving It; appeared first on SF Signal
Copyright © SF Signal

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/marginalrevolution/feed/~3/s0hjSjlfEgQ/the-big-short.html

http://marginalrevolution.com/?p=67328

I liked it much more than I expected to, and was pleased to have been invited to yesterday’s special screening.  (By the way, there are no real spoilers in this review.)  The most noteworthy features of this movie, from my admittedly skewed perspective, are these:

1. The story is told through the medium of changing market prices.  Really.  Reported prices convey the action and its significance, repeatedly, and the audience is expected to “get” this.

2. There is no central villain, none whatsoever.  The filmmakers succeed in showing how the collective actions of many, operating together, can give rise to structural problems and systemic risk.  And yet the story remains suspenseful.

3. It is amazing how much jargon they packed into this movie, let’s hope audiences accept it.  They even try to explain what a collateralized debt obligation is, and why its true risk can be higher than its apparent risk.

4. In terms of flow and pacing, it doesn’t feel like a traditional Hollywood movie.  There is no background music (except Led Zeppelin at the close), the density of information is much higher than expected, and it draws inspiration from various souped-up YouTube clips, some where characters occasionally turn and speak to the audience directly.

5. I enjoyed how this movie showed the world of finance as being a menagerie of different kinds and levels of intelligence.  My favorite scenes were at the CDO conference held in Las Vegas, showing the very specific ways in which people of above-average intelligence nonetheless can be intensely stupid.

6. Yes, the movie was “too leftie” on various points, or occasionally not nuanced enough, such as the SEC regulator scene.  But what the movie does well — namely to condense amazing amounts of economics and finance into what is likely to prove a popular and critically acclaimed film — is path breaking, and more important than its shortcomings.

By the way, the preview for this movie is misleading, for one thing Brad Pitt has only a minor role.  The preview is technically well done, but it makes the film look too mainstream.

Addendum: A recent movie I enjoyed on Netflix was Tangerine, which also has a unique feel to it, shot solely on iPhones.  But if you’re allergic to the idea of a movie about transgender prostitutes, skip it.  It’s one of the great LA movies, though.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=22913

[The first part of this post is from an anonymous contributor.]

The Serbian legation in London complains to the media about the spelling Servia, which is 'highly offensive to our people'.

(It is true that there is a place in Greece called 'Servia', whose name 'derives from the Latin verb servo, meaning "to watch over"'.)

The Chinese for 'Serbia', 'Sai'erweiya' 塞爾維亞 is obviously derived from 'Servia', not 'Serbia' (which latter would have been 'Sai'erbiya'). But, where did English get 'Servia' anyway?

Background to the 'Servia/Sai'erweiya' transcription:

The pronunciation of standard Chinese, as mediated by the hanographs anyway,

1) has no [v]; [w] is the closest thing

2) has no [wi]; [wei] is the closest thing

3) has no monophthong [ɛ]; [aj] is the closest thing

4) requires [ə] before [ɹ]

'Servia' is a 'historical English term, taken from Greek language, used in relation with Serbia, Serbs or the Serbian language', says Wikipedia.

But since when does English go and transcribe old words from Greek with beta as <v> instead of just transliterating as <b>?

In Koine beta was already [v]:

The consonants [of Koine Greek] also preserved their ancient pronunciations to a great extent, except β, γ, δ, φ, θ, χ and ζ. Β, Γ, Δ, which were originally pronounced /b ɡ d/, became the fricatives /v/ (via [β]), /ɣ/, /ð/, which they still are today, except when preceded by a nasal consonant (μ, ν); in that case, they retain their ancient pronunciations (e.g. γαμβρός [ɣambros], άνδρας [andras], άγγελος [aŋɡelos]). The latter three (Φ, Θ, Χ), which were initially pronounced as aspirates (/pʰ tʰ kʰ/ respectively), developed into the fricatives /f/ (via [ɸ]), /θ/, and /x/. Finally ζ, which is still metrically categorised as a double consonant with ξ and ψ because it was initially pronounced as σδ (sd), later acquired its modern-day value of /z/.[9]

But English has 'Bartholomew' and 'Bosphorus', not 'Vartholomew' and 'Vosphorus' .

Wikipedia also says of names of Serbia (historical renderings in other languages):

——————
——————

The following is by VHM:

The pronunciation with "v" was not just in English, but also in modern French.  See the first page of Journal de l'Orne (pdf) (August 22, 1914), under the column titled "Memento de la Guerre"), July 21.  It is curious, however, that for July 23, 24, 26, and 28, the name is spelled "Serbie".

In a recent post, I cited a valuable discussion on the pronunciation and spelling of "asterisk" in English Language & Usage Stack Exchange.

The same forum also took up the question about "Servia" and "Serbia" raised above in a discussion initiated on 8/27/15:

"Why did Servia become Serbia? "

This discussion begins with the observation that, at the start of the First World War, the nation in the Balkans was referred to as Servia, but in "numbers" [sic] published after the second half of 1916, it became Serbia.  I suspect that this dramatic change (as shown in an accompanying Google NGrams chart) was the result of the 1915 initiative of the Serbian government reported in this article from the New Zealand North Otago Times, Volume CI, Issue 13235, 5 March 1915, Page 7:

"SERVIA OR SERBIA?"

If my suspicion is true, this shows that government intervention can radically influence language usage on a global scale.

Those interested in further investigating the origins and etymology of the names of the Serbs and Serbia may consult this Wikpedia article.

Last summer my aunt requested the military file for my grandfather.  It finally came through last month.  I scanned all 600+ pages a couple weeks ago and am now going through it.  It's mostly pretty boring. Lots of medical reports and service evaluations.

However, buried in it are some gems.  For instance, his 1944 fitness report lists the naval operations he participated it.  The first one listed was simply "Truk Islands, 16-17 Feb. 1944".  Looking that up, it was Operation Hailstorm, a major operation to attack what was termed "the Japanese Pearl Harbor" although the Japanese were in the process of evacuating it when we attacked.

The Wikipedia rabbit hole leads me to the Navy documentary The Fighting Lady, which was about the U.S.S. Yorktown leading up to that attack. That was the carrier on which my grandfather served. Time to review it in detail to see if George Weiss shows up anywhere in the footage.  He was an Assistant Gunnery Officer and and Supervisory Deck Watch during this period.


If the embed doesn't work, The Fighting Lady can be found at Archive.org.

http://www.tor.com/2015/12/21/one-fans-blow-by-blow-reaction-to-star-wars-the-force-awakens-or-how-episode-vii-made-me-sob-continuously-in-front-of-my-friends-forever/

http://www.tor.com/?p=200294

So, I was asked to write a spoiler review for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and I was like “You do realize that this is going to be a lot of all-caps screaming punctuated by odd rambling and theories?”

I ended up writing it, so clearly that was okay.

But how do I begin this? At the beginning, I suppose, where I was surprised not to see the Disney title opener before Lucasfilm flashed on the screen. It felt oddly respectful? It was strange, but also nice.

Then the fanfare started up and everyone in the theater flipped out appropriately, and it all felt kind of surreal until the first sentence: “Luke Skywalker has vanished.” And at that point, everything suddenly became very real and I had to keep telling myself to stop crying, sheesh Emily, nothing has even happened yet.

We start of with Poe Dameron, and I was initially kind of disappointed because we’ve been shown Rey and Finn in the trailers for the most part and I was excited to get to them. And then Oscar Isaac opened his mouth and now and forever I plan to be furious at THIS CHARMING MOTHERF*CKER WHO BARELY SAYS TWO SENTENCES AND I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM FOR SOME REASON, STOP BEING SO AFFABLE AND FULL OF CHARISMA, YOU JERK.

The First Order shows up to ruin everything, and Poe gives the plans to BB-8 who manages to be the perfect hybrid of R2-D2 and Wall-E, and tells him he’ll come back for him, so already I’m full of emotions about that and also pleased by the smartness of the symmetry—hey, this cute droid had super important plans needed by the Resistance. How wonderfully familiar….

There’s a firefight and one of the stormtroopers visibly panics at the death of his fellow trooper, and of course it’s Finn, but this isn’t how I imagined being introduced to him, and I’m so damned impressed by the amount of character we can glean through a full suit of body armor. I’m worried for him already. Then there’s Captain Phasma being a boss, but here comes Kylo Ren, the character I was the most concerned about. His mask has been everywhere since this circus started, and I know Adam Driver is under there (who I have mixed feelings about), and it if he turns out to be a weak link, the whole movie is gonna crash and burn.

Then he pauses that blaster fire in mid air, and the physicality is on point, and it’s something new. He speaks and his synthesized voice is frightening, not the joke that General Grievous wound up being. Wow. I’m on board with Kylo Ren. My estimation at how much I’m going to enjoy the movie soars at that point. Then Max von Sydow and everyone around him dies, and we’re on a Star Destroyer, and Finn takes off his helmet and oh god, I hope Tumblr is prepared for their newest precious cinnamon roll because he truly is too perfect for this world. Leave him alone, Phasma, he’s having feelings.

We meet Rey and her life is horrible—she is worse than a cinnamon roll, and as I watch three minutes of this girl scrounging for scrap and eating horrible rations, I think, I would protect her with my life. Wait, what? What is happening to me, I did not expect to latch onto everyone so instantly HOW DARE YOU, JJ, I DO NOT REMEMBER STRIKING THIS BARGAIN WITH YOU. Then she saves BB-8 and they are friends and everything is right with the world. (Except for Rey and Finn’s aforementioned horrible lives, which require fixing stat.)

Finn busts Poe out after an unfortunate interrogation, and I am 500% on board with how much these two love each other instantly because it mirrors my own feelings about everyone in this movie, and also they are freaking adorable. Poor Poe disappears (though he’s obviously not dead), and Finn and Rey meet, and then they have to run away very quickly and they’re arguing about a garbage ship, and you’ve got this niggling sense in the back of your head going ‘But why don’t I see the garbage ship, where is OH GOD OF COURSE’ and the Millennium Falcon is standing by in all her glory. Star Wars just got even more Star Wars. The ensuing chase scene is excellent, and I will forever be mesmerized by BB-8’s ability to give a thumbs up.

Han and Chewie appear, and I’m actually kind of jarred because I was expecting to have to wait a little longer for that one. My favorite thing about their reintroduction is how done Chewie clearly is with propping up Han’s BS in old age. It’s just sarcastic comment after eye roll every time Han opens his mouth, and it feels so right. The revelation that Han is back to his old tricks is fun, but fills you with a sense of dread because you know that there’s bound to be a reason, and it can’t be a good one. But he strikes up a rapport with Rey and Finn right quick, and its wonderfully paternal and sweet.

I should mention here that I walked into this film expecting two things, thanks to the semi-drunken conversations I had with Chris Lough and Ryan Britt in the months leading up to the film: that Kylo was Han and Leia’s kid, and that Han was probably going to die in this film. It all just seemed to add up too well. So when Supreme Leader Snoke (not quite sold on that guy yet, hopefully he’ll come off a little more scary and shrewd going forward) tells Kylo about his dad getting involved in their business again, I wasn’t exactly surprised. More… unsettled.

Takodana is the most beautiful planet, though. I want to have a vacation there now please. Also, if you can’t have Yoda in a movie, Maz Kanata is exactly right as the wizened guide for the new generation. And her bar/temple is amazing. Because seriously, if you’re a thousand year old pirate, why wouldn’t you have a temple with booze in it? And then Rey finds The Lightsaber, you know, the important totem-y thing, and she has flashes of her own childhood and of what happened to Luke’s order of new Jedi, and clearly Rey is the super-special-destiny-cookie and I AM INTO THIS. Enough with all the guys being chosen ones, let this darling girl take the wheel. I have a choked up moment where all I can think of is the little girls everywhere watching this, and how much Rey is going to mean to them in the coming years.

She runs from the saber because that’s what you have to do when destiny is dropped on you, but it unfortunately leads to her capture. On the other hand, it gets Finn all invested because she and Poe are literally the only people that have imprinted on him so far. The face to face with Rey and Kylo, that first moment he takes off his mask, it’s perfect. My favorite thing about Ren is his inability to control the excessive anger he clearly feels all the time. It makes his use of the dark side a very different animal, raw and wounded and grasping for anchors. Even his lightsaber reflects that—the thing looks like it can barely contain its energy, it’s too much, just like the rest of him. You juxtapose him with Phasma and Hux, both carefully controlled (Phasma being the consummate trooper who never removes her helmet for a second) and it’s clear that the First Order is comprised of people with differing passions, which makes the organization that much more interesting.

An aside for the fact that First Order stormtroopers are recruited at birth, and that’s so similar to the Jedi Order, and I have so many thoughts about this the instant Hux brings it up, so that’s something I’m going to have to get out of my head eventually.

The Resistance shows up to drive the First Order back, and that is how you make a heroic entrance, THAT is how you do Star Wars. What a spectacular dogfight. Suddenly Han and Leia are reuniting, and I’m holding my breath for that one, but it’s interrupted by C-3PO who is the only character who is allowed to interrupt this moment. (Can I take a moment to talk about the fact that Anthony Daniels clearly gave Threepio an ever-so-slightly altered cadence to show that the droid is getting older? It’s carefully halted in odd places, and it just broke my heart. Threepio, you are my favorite.) And we finally get the real talk about Han and Leia’s estrangement—their kid turned to the dark side, and they broke apart. It make so much sense; effectively, their son died, and they retreated from each other. What hurts the most is how guilty Han clearly feels for failing Leia—he wants to fix things between them, but he doesn’t feel capable, hence his reason for volunteering to run a mission that he hasn’t really planned at all. Leia, on the other hand, has come to the revelation that love is really the only thing that can save their son, a parallel of Luke’s journey that hurts me so much.

We get Starkiller Base, blah, blah, let’s go blow it up, blah, blah, I mean, I don’t have a problem with the Death Star parallel, it’s just not all that interesting to comment on. On the other hand, the intense reunion between Poe and Finn is my jam. And then Finn goes with Han, and Han realizes that Finn does not really get what the Force means, which is going to be a problem with their not-plan. Rey is busy discovering that whenever she really calms down, she can access extreme wells of power, and she mind tricks a stormtrooper to break out (learning the Force by trial and error is a new favorite thing), and I’m thinking I know that trooper voice….

Which I do because IT’S DANIEL FLIPPING CRAIG. YOU TERRIBLE MAN. ILU.

Phasma gets thrown down the trash compactor (best callback ever), so we can be sure we’ll see her again, and then Han’s like ‘we gotta go blow up the thing with detonators’, and that’s the point where my stomach drops—it’s a big old red flag if I ever saw one. And then we get one better when he walks out to meet his son on catwalk over a bottomless pit with no railings. (Oh shit, his name is Ben, they named him Ben, just like Luke’s kid in the Legends canon, and I’m freaking out even more.) I actually don’t mind that they telegraph this moment. I’d rather be prepared for Han’s death, I’d rather not get caught off guard. And it’s tragic, and wrenching, but I can handle it, I can keep it together—

—and then Leia feels it and I’m sobbing audibly in this giant theater, and I will never recover from this.

And everything from that point on feels like a blur until Finn and Rey end up facing off with Kylo Ren. Poor Finn does his best, but he’s not really ready for this face off. (Still wondering if he’ll end up Force sensitive later on? I’d like it if he were….) And Ren is reaching out for Anakin’s lightsaber, but it comes to Rey because she has to have her crowning moment as special-destiny-cookie, and this is a beautifully sure one. Their fight is fantastic because we’re dealing with untrained elements again. Kylo’s technique is cruel but sloppy, and Rey clearly has no idea what she’s doing, and it makes for a great first fight. Chewie comes to the rescue, and he’s flying the Falcon alone because, you know, I hadn’t cried enough at this movie.

The Resistance wins the day, and Rey arrives on planet and immediately goes to Leia, and they hug and I am also entirely here for these two women sensing each other’s pain and caring about each other and fine, I’LL CRY AGAIN, ARE YOU HAPPY, MOVIE? But even with Finn out of commission, and questions about the next step, there’s only one question taking up my mind at this point—

WHERE THE HELL IS LUKE.

R2 finally wakes up! (Shout out for the fact that Threepio and Artoo clearly love BB-8. Droid friends forever.) And the map happens, and it’s quest time for Rey. She gets on board the Falcon—so many thoughts and feelings about how Chewie just latches onto her, and how there’s never any question that she inherits the ship—and arrives on a gorgeous island-dotted world, where she has to make a trek up a mountain with her offering. I’m about to chew my own hand off because if I don’t see him—movie, you better show me Luke Skywalker’s face…

And there he is. (Sobbing again, obviously. I’ve only been waiting for this moment since I first saw Return of the Jedi.) He sees that lightsaber and he knows. That one look is all we need. And we’re left with the two of them standing on a mountain, teacher and apprentice, and the possibilities just stretching out to infinity. Movie over.

So that was pretty much how that first viewing went. I’ll probably see it several more times in the theater, and I have lots of aspects I’m desperate to discuss, but that was my blow-by-blow reaction. With all caps and ramblings and the like. Time to spend another day in the office bouncing more theories off of coworkers and generally flailing.

Because Star Wars is back.

Emily Asher-Perrin also finds herself shipping Stormpilot without ever recalling giving herself permission to do so, because idk their love is so real. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.

http://www.tor.com/2015/12/21/should-we-just-let-santa-die-already-asks-l-frank-baum/

http://www.tor.com/?p=199881

Hearken unto me, little children. I grew up during the 1980s, when something called the Video Cassette Recorder was still the red hot, razor sharp, cutting-edge of technology. While it seems hard to believe nowadays, the bulky black rectangle, perched like a crude, mass-market facsimile of the Monolith from 2001 glowered ominously from the heights of our family entertainment center and was worshiped as a household god, which might be why my brother kept trying to feed it his Cheerios all the time (that did not end well). For me, the VCR was just a magical purveyor of Fraggle Rock and Cyndi Lauper videos; for my father, I now realize, it became a means of ruthlessly hunting down and capturing every single televised holiday special aired in the tri-state area between the late 70s and the mid-90s.

The amazing thing is that most of these tapes still survive to this day, having somehow escaped both the trauma of having soggy cereal dumped into the VCR and my manic Mystery Science Theater taping-sprees of yore (Hey! Joel said to keep circulating the tapes—if that meant recording a Gamera movie over some lesser sibling’s first baby steps, so be it. I have no regrets). The upshot of all this is that my siblings and I have had access to A LOT of really strange, Christmas-themed entertainment, and yet every year we return to one of our collective favorites: the 1985 Rankin/Bass adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus, also known as The World’s Most Bizarre Animated Christmas Special…EVER.

If you’re not familiar with Baum’s take on the Santa Claus legend, here’s the deal (get ready): Claus, a mortal infant, is found by the great Ak, Master Woodsman of the World, and raised by the immortals populating the magical Forest of Burzee, which include Fairies, Wood Nymphs, Gnomes, Elves, Imps, and (most awesomely) Wind Demons. His education includes a traumatizing jaunt through the human world, where he encounters war, poverty, child abuse and neglect, and general inhumanity, at which point Claus decides that he must venture forth from his charmed existence in order to bring some good into the depressing hellscape that is mortal life.

The rest of the book follows his transformation into the kindly, toy-dispensing Santa Claus we’re all familiar with, except in this version he has to fight the evil Awgwas (a sort of malevolent ogre/demon blend) with the help of all his wacky immortal buddies, culminating in an massive battle between the Great Ak and his minions and the forces of evil: Awgwas, Demons, Giants and, of course, Dragons. Because what Christmas story is complete without evil, Santa-hating dragons?

Even better than the random demon-and-dragon battle, though, is the fact that the entire story is framed by a plot device involving Claus’s impending death. The Rankin/Bass special begins with the Great Ak assembling a council of Immortals in order to decide whether Claus should be granted the Mantle of Immortality and continue bringing joy to the children of the world, OR whether they should, you know, just let him drop dead. Tonight. Got it, kids? Santa’s about to go to sleep AND NEVER WAKE UP. Yeah. Thanks, Rankin and Bass, for bringing the much-needed stench of death to the world of cheery holiday fun. Wow.

I really can’t describe how weird and amazing this special is, so all I can do is implore you to see for yourself, beginning with the clip below. Feel free to skip the first minute of the clip if you’re in some sort of weird hurry, but please, please, please check out the opening song, which combines creepy pseudo-Latin chanting with crazy puppet wind demons, and features catchy holiday lyrics like: “Ora e Sempre/ Today and Forever/ For ages and ages to come/ To the first cracking of Doom!!!” Not exactly “Frosty the Snowman,” is it? Doom? Wind demons? Chanting in Latin? These things alone should be enough to convince that you haven’t done Christmas right until you’ve done Christmas with L. Frank Frickin’ Baum (whose profound and awe-inspiring weirdness is overlooked far too often by the general population). This year, do yourself a favor and check out Baum’s book, the inspired Rankin/Bass production (which is as visually gorgeous as it is bizarrre), or some combination thereof; the holidays will never seem quite the same again…

This post originally appeared on Tor.com on December 19, 2008

Bridget McGovern is the managing editor of Tor.com.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/12/21/the-scamperbeasts-pose-122115/

http://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=27699

First the serious one.

And now the “fun” one!

Oh, Scamperbeasts. Never change.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201512/heres-why-your-dog-might-not-be-cute-you-think

What is more important in determining how strongly people are attached to their dogs -- cuteness or canine personality?