Science Fiction Trivia

[RockDoctor]

{tap, tap}
Is this thing on? {hooowlllll rowunnnnnd}
Is there anybody in there?

[Cholmondely]

This doesn't count:

https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Sector1/Digebiti:

Other failed exports include the silk top hat, the tricorn and the pith helmet. Whilst hat-wearing is all the rage on Digebiti itself, and hats are worn by gentlemen of all ranks and none (not to mention the ladies), the particular fashions currently in vogue have proved of little interest to the sartorially inclined in other systems. There was a run on tricorns on some of the lobstoid worlds, but when the House of Lords came to understand that they were being used as knee-protectors, the trade was interdicted in a flurry of disgust and disbelief.

[RockDoctor]

This doesn't count:

https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Sector1/Digebiti:

Other failed exports include the silk top hat, the tricorn and the pith helmet. Whilst hat-wearing is all the rage on Digebiti itself, and hats are worn by gentlemen of all ranks and none (not to mention the ladies), the particular fashions currently in vogue have proved of little interest to the sartorially inclined in other systems. There was a run on tricorns on some of the lobstoid worlds, but when the House of Lords came to understand that they were being used as knee-protectors, the trade was interdicted in a flurry of disgust and disbelief.

Seems to fit the necessary criteria.
Tricorns appeared in last night's reading - a parallel worlds novel where time lines diverged in the late 18th century, and tricorns persisted.

1. Nite Owl with Indy's skull-covering.
2. Wildeblood with Ardala's ... I have a sudden memory of Jospehéne Baker. Art Deco and enough rhinestones to distract a hunting Liberace.
3. ffutures and Jay Cobb's firefly "tile"
4. Cholmondely and Digebiti's sartorial "elegance".

A plink, plink, fizz happens offstage. The mercury which drove Alice's Hatter mad has been added to the Chalice. Quite how I'm going to do that with effervescence, I haven't retconned yet, but I'll find a way.

[Cholmondely]

Here's some genuine "Science Fiction Trivia" for you!

Bevis Marks synagogue modernized around 1840. They threw out the antiquated tricorn and replaced it with the spanking new modern new top hat. They are still modern... they still wear the top hat.

I am told that the Synagogue de la Victoire are not. That they still wear the bicorn.

The great thing about the tricorn is that it predates waterproof clothing. You would bung one on your pate, and when the rain came, it would gather the water and sluice it over your shoulders down onto the street behind.

The pith helmet, on the other hand... if you were in the tropics, you could dunk it in river water and the evaporation would help keep your head cool.

[RockDoctor]

Here's some genuine "Science Fiction Trivia" for you!

You wear a hat to a synagogue? I though you had to wear one of those little lace doily things. Round, floppy beer mats. Whatever they're called? Same way that Christian women are meant to cover their hair - but not with a burkah. But with the same aim to avoid provoking the uncontrollable lust of the self-control-free menfolk.
I'm now trying to remember the address of any synagogue in any town I've lived in or visited. I've a moderate memory of thinking "huh, synagogue ; any Nazis to punch?" at least once, but unusually for my navigation-familiar mind, I can't remember where. Which suggest it was the only time I ever walked down that street, and it wasn't in a town I stayed more than a few nights in. Peculiar sensation that.

The pith helmet, on the other hand... if you were in the tropics, you could dunk it in river water and the evaporation would help keep your head cool.

If you can find enough water to dunk it into. Which you'd want to be drying into your hair for the next several hours.

[RockDoctor]

Have we stalled?
I've been off-planet, trying to break-in a new laptop. (Well, new enough that Win11 will run on it. Not that Win11 wants to run with anything else. Which meant days of trying different routes to get it under my control, not Uncle Bill's.)

The status quo is :

• - Nite Owl with Indy's skull-covering.
• - Wildeblood with Ardala's ... I have a sudden memory of Jospehéne Baker. Art Deco and enough rhinestones to distract a hunting Liberace.
• - ffutures and Jay Cobb's firefly "tile"
• - Cholmondely and Digebiti's sartorial "elegance".
• -

I note that Cholmondley actually tried a pass "in Nidd" by ruling out his own entry in the entry. Which, of course validates it.
Unless someone other than Cholmondley wishes to sup the Chalice, I propose that it goes to him at close of business on Friday.
Of course, Cholmondley can do the decent thing. The traditional loaded revolver and a shot of whiskey are in the plinth. Please replace the whiskey after using the revolver.

[Wildeblood]

Please replace the whiskey after using the revolver.

Harsh, but fair.

[Cholmondely]

The traditional loaded revolver and a shot of whiskey are in the plinth. Please replace the whiskey after using the revolver.

Whiskey? Yuqqq!

[RockDoctor]

Make pteridomania great again!

The only two times that I can think of pteridophytes being unusually large proportions of the (microfossil) population of drilling samples were : in Devonian mudrocks - because other types of pollen-producing plants hadn't really got going yet. And in the first few hundred thousand years of the Palaeocene, following the globally extensive wildfires triggered by secondary ejecta from the large meteorite impact in what I (the Trump-scale "I") refer to as the Gulf of Chicxulub.

Going back to crawling out of the primæval slime, or a firey death for pretty much everyone not living in a deep burrow with several years stored food. What a range of choices.
I wonder ... how much energy from your witchdrive could you put into changing an asteroid's orbit, and what would the light show be like if it attempted planetary lithobreaking. (After a brief, ineffectual flirtation with aerobraking. A minor component of any light show.)

[RockDoctor]

Friday has been and gone with no further hats in the ring, so I award the Chalice, whiskey, and single-shot revolver to ...
- Cholmondely and Digebiti's sartorial "elegance".

Some MBPs to NiteOwl, Wildeblood and ffutures for their efforts, and over to Cholmondley for whatever dastardly Dickiness he can come up with,


Wait a minute - a single-shot revolver? That's ... not right. Sawn-off revolver? Something mess-making.

[Cholmondely]

Well,

I don't know enough about science fiction to set a question, never mind check if the answer is correct. So I'll do what I did last time I "won", and ask about Oolite itself.





What is the one change about Oolite you would most like to see... what would that one thing be?




This question is asked with no expectation that our sadly depleted Admiralty would be expected to do anything about the responses!

[Wildeblood]

What is the one change about Oolite you would most like to see... what would that one thing be?

,,Wo ist die Dokumentation?"