• It is not just Physics that Should be Hard in Hard SF

    From Robert Woodward@21:1/5 to All on Sat Sep 21 10:02:33 2024
    I think authors mess up biology quite often in Science Fiction/Fantasy.
    For example, IMHO, genetic engineering will be much more difficult than
    some authors assume because an individual's DNA isn't the blueprint but
    the assembly instructions.

    Also, I have seen stories where advanced bio-technic civilizations use
    bacteria (or multicellular organisms) to wreck havoc on our type of
    technology. Essentially, they are speeding up rust and other forms of degradation by one or more orders of magnitude. This, unfortunately,
    requires one of more orders of magnitude more power at the cellular
    level (probably greater amounts of stored energy as well).

    --
    "We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
    Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_. �-----------------------------------------------------
    Robert Woodward [email protected]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Ahasuerus@21:1/5 to Robert Woodward on Sat Sep 21 19:26:20 2024
    On 9/21/2024 1:02 PM, Robert Woodward wrote:
    I think authors mess up biology quite often in Science Fiction/Fantasy.
    [snip]

    The other day a PharmD wrote (https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1fj0aon/books_that_feature_speculative_but_accurate/):

    science fiction ... is very sophisticated when it comes to
    engineering, astronomy and physics, but when it comes to
    biochemistry, medicine and pharmacology, I've yet to encounter
    any fiction that gets it right.

    My response was:

    Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy (https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/):

    everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for
    the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge

    or the similar Gell-Mann amnesia effect (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_effect)?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Ahasuerus on Mon Oct 7 15:43:22 2024
    Ahasuerus wrote:
    Robert Woodward wrote:
    I think authors mess up biology quite often in Science Fiction/Fantasy.
    For example, IMHO, genetic engineering will be much more difficult than
    some authors assume because an individual's DNA isn't the blueprint but
    the assembly instructions.

    Also, I have seen stories where advanced bio-technic civilizations use
    bacteria (or multicellular organisms) to wreck havoc on our type of
    technology. Essentially, they are speeding up rust and other forms of
    degradation by one or more orders of magnitude. This, unfortunately,
    requires one of more orders of magnitude more power at the cellular
    level (probably greater amounts of stored energy as well).

    The other day a PharmD wrote (https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1fj0aon/books_that_feature_speculative_but_accurate/):

    science fiction ... is very sophisticated when it comes to
    engineering, astronomy and physics, but when it comes to
    biochemistry, medicine and pharmacology, I've yet to encounter
    any fiction that gets it right.

    My response was:

    Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy (https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/):

    everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for
    the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge

    or the similar Gell-Mann amnesia effect (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_effect)?

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook.

    Edgar Allan Poe (EAP) invented the detective genre. EAP's sleuth took
    the form of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, who triumphed through
    thoughtfulness. Dupin believed the game of chess suitable for
    developing mental prowess.

    EAP nemesis Arthur Conan Doyle followed in Poe's footsteps. Doyle
    projected his own drug use into Holmes to twist Poe's clear thinking
    detective into mysticism. The Poe-Doyle nexus will be covered by me in
    the future.

    Agatha Christie restored Poe's idealized detective. Her character,
    Hercule Poirot, also brings back the Francophilia found in Poe's Dupin.

    Levinson and Link's Lieutenant Columbo closely follows formula. Is the
    show's Peugeot 403 another nod to Poe's Dupin?

    Robin Cook's _Critical_ (Cook, 2007) contains a Lieutenant strikingly
    similar to Columbo. Cook's hard-science biology is about as good as it
    gets these days. See what you think about this sample:

    Laurie sat down and explained the situation, which elicited
    from Agnes a mini-lecture on MRSA, including everything
    Besserman had to say and then some. She explained in detail
    how staphylococcus was such a pluripotent microbe, and
    perhaps the most adaptive and successful human pathogen.

    "When you think about it from the bacteria's point of view,"
    Agnes said, "it is truly a superbug, capable of killing
    someone in a frightfully short time while the same strain
    is able to merely colonize an individual, usually just
    within the nares. This is a convenient location for the
    bacteria, because every time the carrier puts his or her
    finger in their nose, their fingers are contaminated from
    where it can be spread to the next person."

    "Is there an estimate as to how many people are so colonized?"

    "Absolutely. At any given time, a third of the world's
    population carries staph; that's about two billion people."

    "Good Lord," Laurie said. "Are there many strains of MRSA
    besides the hospital-acquired and the community-acquired?"

    "Very many," Agnes said. "And they are evolving all the
    time in people's noses and elsewhere, like moist skin
    surfaces, where they exchange genetic material."

    "How are the strains differentiated in the laboratory?"

    "Many ways," Agnes said. "Antibiotic resistance is one."

    "But that's not particularly sensitive, considering
    everything you've said."

    "That's correct. The more sensitive methods are all
    genetics-based: the simplest and most commonly employed
    being pulse-field gel electrophoresis, and the most
    complete being full genotyping. In between, there are a
    number of other sequence typing techniques all based on
    PCR."

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Kevrob@21:1/5 to Don on Thu Oct 10 16:28:38 2024
    On 10/7/2024 11:43 AM, Don wrote:
    Ahasuerus wrote:
    Robert Woodward wrote:
    I think authors mess up biology quite often in Science Fiction/Fantasy.
    For example, IMHO, genetic engineering will be much more difficult than
    some authors assume because an individual's DNA isn't the blueprint but
    the assembly instructions.

    Also, I have seen stories where advanced bio-technic civilizations use
    bacteria (or multicellular organisms) to wreck havoc on our type of
    technology. Essentially, they are speeding up rust and other forms of
    degradation by one or more orders of magnitude. This, unfortunately,
    requires one of more orders of magnitude more power at the cellular
    level (probably greater amounts of stored energy as well).

    The other day a PharmD wrote
    (https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1fj0aon/books_that_feature_speculative_but_accurate/):

    science fiction ... is very sophisticated when it comes to
    engineering, astronomy and physics, but when it comes to
    biochemistry, medicine and pharmacology, I've yet to encounter
    any fiction that gets it right.

    My response was:

    Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
    (https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/):

    everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for
    the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge

    or the similar Gell-Mann amnesia effect
    (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_effect)?

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook.

    Edgar Allan Poe (EAP) invented.....
    [snip]

    Cook is a trained M. Have you tried F.Paul Wilson's medical-related
    thrillers? He's a DO.

    __
    Kevin R


    --
    This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
    www.avg.com

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  • From Ted Nolan @21:1/5 to Scott Dorsey on Fri Oct 11 16:57:44 2024
    In article <vebkmc$f1p$[email protected]>,
    Scott Dorsey <[email protected]> wrote:
    In article <ve9dec$39tdu$[email protected]>, Kevrob <[email protected]> wrote:
    On 10/7/2024 11:43 AM, Don wrote:

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook. >>>
    Cook is a trained M. Have you tried F.Paul Wilson's medical-related >>thrillers? He's a DO.

    Don't forget Michael Crichton, who wrote well-crafted biological
    near-future science fiction books like Terminal Man, Andromeda
    Strain, and so forth before he became too famous to write new stuff.
    --scott
    --

    I was aware that he became too dead to write new stuff, but thought he
    had kept going up until that point..
    --
    columbiaclosings.com
    What's not in Columbia anymore..

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Fri Oct 11 16:45:00 2024
    In article <ve9dec$39tdu$[email protected]>, Kevrob <[email protected]> wrote: >On 10/7/2024 11:43 AM, Don wrote:

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook.

    Cook is a trained M. Have you tried F.Paul Wilson's medical-related >thrillers? He's a DO.

    Don't forget Michael Crichton, who wrote well-crafted biological
    near-future science fiction books like Terminal Man, Andromeda
    Strain, and so forth before he became too famous to write new stuff.
    --scott
    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Kevrob on Fri Oct 11 17:38:43 2024
    Kevrob wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Ahasuerus wrote:
    Robert Woodward wrote:
    I think authors mess up biology quite often in Science Fiction/Fantasy. >>>> For example, IMHO, genetic engineering will be much more difficult than >>>> some authors assume because an individual's DNA isn't the blueprint but >>>> the assembly instructions.

    Also, I have seen stories where advanced bio-technic civilizations use >>>> bacteria (or multicellular organisms) to wreck havoc on our type of
    technology. Essentially, they are speeding up rust and other forms of
    degradation by one or more orders of magnitude. This, unfortunately,
    requires one of more orders of magnitude more power at the cellular
    level (probably greater amounts of stored energy as well).

    The other day a PharmD wrote
    (https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1fj0aon/books_that_feature_speculative_but_accurate/):

    science fiction ... is very sophisticated when it comes to
    engineering, astronomy and physics, but when it comes to
    biochemistry, medicine and pharmacology, I've yet to encounter
    any fiction that gets it right.

    My response was:

    Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
    (https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/):

    everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for
    the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge

    or the similar Gell-Mann amnesia effect
    (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_effect)?

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook.

    Edgar Allan Poe (EAP) invented the detective genre. EAP's sleuth took
    the form of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, who triumphed through
    thoughtfulness. Dupin believed the game of chess suitable for
    developing mental prowess.

    EAP nemesis Arthur Conan Doyle followed in Poe's footsteps. Doyle
    projected his own drug use into Holmes to twist Poe's clear thinking
    detective into mysticism. The Poe-Doyle nexus will be covered by me in
    the future.

    Agatha Christie restored Poe's idealized detective. Her character,
    Hercule Poirot, also brings back the Francophilia found in Poe's Dupin.

    Levinson and Link's Lieutenant Columbo closely follows formula. Is the
    show's Peugeot 403 another nod to Poe's Dupin?

    Robin Cook's Critical (Cook, 2007) contains a Lieutenant strikingly
    similar to Columbo. Cook's hard-science biology is about as good as it
    gets these days.

    Cook is a trained M. Have you tried F.Paul Wilson's medical-related thrillers? He's a DO.

    Thank you for the lead. It'll be interesting to see how much Wilson's
    detective ?Quinn Cleary? follows the formula found above -
    ratiocination in the manner of EAP's Dupin. (Ellery Queen also needs to
    be read by me.)
    My readers may wonder what's so special about Poe's French
    detective? French theoretical physicist Pierre Duhem explains the innate superiority of the Gallic mind:

    We need logic, the ability to systematize, but we also
    need intuition, the recognition of truth. When one of
    these is allowed to dominate, we get a science which
    is all intuition, all "esprit de finesse," but no
    logical coherence, namely, English science; or we get
    a science which is all logic, lacking bon sens, namely,
    German science. German science then is a degenerate
    kind of French science, the latter being predominantly
    "esprit de geometrie," corrected by bon sens.

    <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/duhem/>

    There's also a French connection as intelligence officer EAP's
    grandfather served as Quartermaster General for the Marquis de
    Lafayette in the Continental Army. Perhaps EAP's Francophilia
    insulted Arthur Conan Doyle.

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bobbie Sellers@21:1/5 to Don on Fri Oct 11 12:03:51 2024
    On 10/11/24 10:38, Don wrote:
    Kevrob wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Ahasuerus wrote:
    Robert Woodward wrote:
    I think authors mess up biology quite often in Science Fiction/Fantasy. >>>>> For example, IMHO, genetic engineering will be much more difficult than >>>>> some authors assume because an individual's DNA isn't the blueprint but >>>>> the assembly instructions.

    Also, I have seen stories where advanced bio-technic civilizations use >>>>> bacteria (or multicellular organisms) to wreck havoc on our type of
    technology. Essentially, they are speeding up rust and other forms of >>>>> degradation by one or more orders of magnitude. This, unfortunately, >>>>> requires one of more orders of magnitude more power at the cellular
    level (probably greater amounts of stored energy as well).

    The other day a PharmD wrote
    (https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1fj0aon/books_that_feature_speculative_but_accurate/):

    science fiction ... is very sophisticated when it comes to
    engineering, astronomy and physics, but when it comes to
    biochemistry, medicine and pharmacology, I've yet to encounter
    any fiction that gets it right.

    My response was:

    Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
    (https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/):

    everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for
    the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge

    or the similar Gell-Mann amnesia effect
    (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_effect)?

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook. >>>
    Edgar Allan Poe (EAP) invented the detective genre. EAP's sleuth took
    the form of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, who triumphed through
    thoughtfulness. Dupin believed the game of chess suitable for
    developing mental prowess.

    EAP nemesis Arthur Conan Doyle followed in Poe's footsteps. Doyle
    projected his own drug use into Holmes to twist Poe's clear thinking
    detective into mysticism. The Poe-Doyle nexus will be covered by me in
    the future.

    Well I find your logic flawed as he was writing about
    his mentor in Medical School who used science as tool in detection.
    Whether or not that mentor used stimulants is a open question
    but the detective he wrote about only used cocaine when he was
    bored by the lack of interesting crimes to investigate.


    Agatha Christie restored Poe's idealized detective. Her character,
    Hercule Poirot, also brings back the Francophilia found in Poe's Dupin.

    Pardon me but Poirot is a Belgian. Nothing to do with Some imagained Francophilia.


    Levinson and Link's Lieutenant Columbo closely follows formula. Is the
    show's Peugeot 403 another nod to Poe's Dupin?

    Robin Cook's Critical (Cook, 2007) contains a Lieutenant strikingly
    similar to Columbo. Cook's hard-science biology is about as good as it
    gets these days.

    Cook is a trained M. Have you tried F.Paul Wilson's medical-related
    thrillers? He's a DO.

    Thank you for the lead. It'll be interesting to see how much Wilson's detective ?Quinn Cleary? follows the formula found above -
    ratiocination in the manner of EAP's Dupin. (Ellery Queen also needs to
    be read by me.)
    My readers may wonder what's so special about Poe's French
    detective? French theoretical physicist Pierre Duhem explains the innate superiority of the Gallic mind:

    We need logic, the ability to systematize, but we also
    need intuition, the recognition of truth. When one of
    these is allowed to dominate, we get a science which
    is all intuition, all "esprit de finesse," but no
    logical coherence, namely, English science; or we get
    a science which is all logic, lacking bon sens, namely,
    German science. German science then is a degenerate
    kind of French science, the latter being predominantly
    "esprit de geometrie," corrected by bon sens.

    <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/duhem/>

    There's also a French connection as intelligence officer EAP's
    grandfather served as Quartermaster General for the Marquis de
    Lafayette in the Continental Army. Perhaps EAP's Francophilia
    insulted Arthur Conan Doyle.

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God. tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    Please do not leave out Perry Mason who is Sherlockian in his
    ability to pick the murderer out the crowd of suspects. Paul Drake is
    his investigator to determine all the knowable facts of a case.
    Earle Stanley Gardener invented him but the books read more like an
    outline for scripts. I watched the pre-WW II movies where Perry was
    played by a Hispanic-surnamed star and which were largely set in
    San Francisco.

    bliss

    --
    b l i s s - S F 4 e v e r at D S L E x t r e m e dot com

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to All on Fri Oct 11 19:52:03 2024
    Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
    In article <vebkmc$f1p$[email protected]>,
    Scott Dorsey <[email protected]> wrote:
    In article <ve9dec$39tdu$[email protected]>, Kevrob <[email protected]> wrote:
    On 10/7/2024 11:43 AM, Don wrote:

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook. >>>>
    Cook is a trained M. Have you tried F.Paul Wilson's medical-related >>>thrillers? He's a DO.

    Don't forget Michael Crichton, who wrote well-crafted biological >>near-future science fiction books like Terminal Man, Andromeda
    Strain, and so forth before he became too famous to write new stuff.

    I was aware that he became too dead to write new stuff, but thought he
    had kept going up until that point..

    No, at some point he got to the point where he was just writing the
    same book over and over again with the same characters and only one
    or two basic premises changed.
    --scott
    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From James Nicoll@21:1/5 to Scott Dorsey on Fri Oct 11 22:29:10 2024
    In article <vebkmc$f1p$[email protected]>,
    Scott Dorsey <[email protected]> wrote:
    In article <ve9dec$39tdu$[email protected]>, Kevrob <[email protected]> wrote:
    On 10/7/2024 11:43 AM, Don wrote:

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook. >>>
    Cook is a trained M. Have you tried F.Paul Wilson's medical-related >>thrillers? He's a DO.

    Don't forget Michael Crichton, who wrote well-crafted biological
    near-future science fiction books like Terminal Man, Andromeda
    Strain, and so forth before he became too famous to write new stuff.

    Epileptics were not super keen on his take on epilepsy in The Terminal
    Man.
    --
    My reviews can be found at http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
    My tor pieces at https://www.tor.com/author/james-davis-nicoll/
    My Dreamwidth at https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
    My patreon is at https://www.patreon.com/jamesdnicoll

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to James Nicoll on Sat Oct 12 12:30:42 2024
    James Nicoll <[email protected]> wrote:
    Scott Dorsey <[email protected]> wrote:
    In article <ve9dec$39tdu$[email protected]>, Kevrob <[email protected]> wrote:
    On 10/7/2024 11:43 AM, Don wrote:

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook. >>>>
    Cook is a trained M. Have you tried F.Paul Wilson's medical-related >>>thrillers? He's a DO.

    Don't forget Michael Crichton, who wrote well-crafted biological >>near-future science fiction books like Terminal Man, Andromeda
    Strain, and so forth before he became too famous to write new stuff.

    Epileptics were not super keen on his take on epilepsy in The Terminal
    Man.

    He is pretty careful to point out that temporal lobe epilepsy is very
    much nontypical... but yes, it's not good press.
    --scott

    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sat Oct 12 09:40:02 2024
    On Sat, 12 Oct 2024 11:44:28 +0100, Robert Carnegie
    <[email protected]> wrote:

    On 21/09/2024 18:02, Robert Woodward wrote:
    I think authors mess up biology quite often in Science Fiction/Fantasy.
    For example, IMHO, genetic engineering will be much more difficult than
    some authors assume because an individual's DNA isn't the blueprint but
    the assembly instructions.

    Also, I have seen stories where advanced bio-technic civilizations use
    bacteria (or multicellular organisms) to wreck havoc on our type of
    technology. Essentially, they are speeding up rust and other forms of
    degradation by one or more orders of magnitude. This, unfortunately,
    requires one of more orders of magnitude more power at the cellular
    level (probably greater amounts of stored energy as well).

    One, there are catalysts. Two, it may be
    happening for a while before humans realise
    there's a problem and then understand it.

    It it knocks out 21st century computers,
    we're pretty much dead as a civilisation.

    Yep.

    We could, I suppose, go back to recording things on mud bricks and
    then firing them. Or on rock. And then keeping the records out of the
    weather.

    Hey, it worked for Assyria, Chaldea, Persia, and Egypt! Among others,
    no doubt.
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sat Oct 12 09:36:50 2024
    On Fri, 11 Oct 2024 12:03:51 -0700, Bobbie Sellers <[email protected]d> wrote:

    On 10/11/24 10:38, Don wrote:
    Kevrob wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Ahasuerus wrote:
    Robert Woodward wrote:
    I think authors mess up biology quite often in Science Fiction/Fantasy. >>>>>> For example, IMHO, genetic engineering will be much more difficult than >>>>>> some authors assume because an individual's DNA isn't the blueprint but >>>>>> the assembly instructions.

    Also, I have seen stories where advanced bio-technic civilizations use >>>>>> bacteria (or multicellular organisms) to wreck havoc on our type of >>>>>> technology. Essentially, they are speeding up rust and other forms of >>>>>> degradation by one or more orders of magnitude. This, unfortunately, >>>>>> requires one of more orders of magnitude more power at the cellular >>>>>> level (probably greater amounts of stored energy as well).

    The other day a PharmD wrote
    (https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1fj0aon/books_that_feature_speculative_but_accurate/):

    science fiction ... is very sophisticated when it comes to
    engineering, astronomy and physics, but when it comes to
    biochemistry, medicine and pharmacology, I've yet to encounter
    any fiction that gets it right.

    My response was:

    Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
    (https://effectiviology.com/knolls-law/):

    everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for >>>>> the rare story of which you happen to have firsthand knowledge

    or the similar Gell-Mann amnesia effect
    (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_effect)?

    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook. >>>>
    Edgar Allan Poe (EAP) invented the detective genre. EAP's sleuth took
    the form of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, who triumphed through
    thoughtfulness. Dupin believed the game of chess suitable for
    developing mental prowess.

    EAP nemesis Arthur Conan Doyle followed in Poe's footsteps. Doyle
    projected his own drug use into Holmes to twist Poe's clear thinking
    detective into mysticism. The Poe-Doyle nexus will be covered by me in >>>> the future.

    Well I find your logic flawed as he was writing about
    his mentor in Medical School who used science as tool in detection.
    Whether or not that mentor used stimulants is a open question
    but the detective he wrote about only used cocaine when he was
    bored by the lack of interesting crimes to investigate.


    Agatha Christie restored Poe's idealized detective. Her character,
    Hercule Poirot, also brings back the Francophilia found in Poe's Dupin.

    Pardon me but Poirot is a Belgian. Nothing to do with Some imagained
    Francophilia.


    Levinson and Link's Lieutenant Columbo closely follows formula. Is the >>>> show's Peugeot 403 another nod to Poe's Dupin?

    Robin Cook's Critical (Cook, 2007) contains a Lieutenant strikingly
    similar to Columbo. Cook's hard-science biology is about as good as it >>>> gets these days.

    Cook is a trained M. Have you tried F.Paul Wilson's medical-related
    thrillers? He's a DO.

    Thank you for the lead. It'll be interesting to see how much Wilson's
    detective ?Quinn Cleary? follows the formula found above -
    ratiocination in the manner of EAP's Dupin. (Ellery Queen also needs to
    be read by me.)
    My readers may wonder what's so special about Poe's French
    detective? French theoretical physicist Pierre Duhem explains the innate
    superiority of the Gallic mind:

    We need logic, the ability to systematize, but we also
    need intuition, the recognition of truth. When one of
    these is allowed to dominate, we get a science which
    is all intuition, all "esprit de finesse," but no
    logical coherence, namely, English science; or we get
    a science which is all logic, lacking bon sens, namely,
    German science. German science then is a degenerate
    kind of French science, the latter being predominantly
    "esprit de geometrie," corrected by bon sens.

    <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/duhem/>

    There's also a French connection as intelligence officer EAP's
    grandfather served as Quartermaster General for the Marquis de
    Lafayette in the Continental Army. Perhaps EAP's Francophilia
    insulted Arthur Conan Doyle.

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php
    telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    Please do not leave out Perry Mason who is Sherlockian in his
    ability to pick the murderer out the crowd of suspects. Paul Drake is
    his investigator to determine all the knowable facts of a case.
    Earle Stanley Gardener invented him but the books read more like an
    outline for scripts. I watched the pre-WW II movies where Perry was
    played by a Hispanic-surnamed star and which were largely set in
    San Francisco.

    All five are available on a DVD-R /Perry Mason Mysteries: The Original
    Warner Bros. Movies Collection/ on two discs. All but the last has a
    trailer, which is about as good as it gets for most DVD-Rs (those
    replacing out-of-print [so to speak] DVDs tend to have more of the menu/features on the original DVD).

    There were actually three Perry Masons: Ricardo Cortez, Warren
    William, and Donald Woods. Some were serious, one did an interesting
    take on Perry, modeled on /The Thin Man/.

    Most have a simple office; one has an entire floor of a building with
    assistant lawyers, clerical employees, etc. One moves Perry to San
    Francisco (in the book, he does move there temporarily because that's
    where the case it, but the film, as they all do, simplifies things a
    bit).

    Oh, and Paul Drake isn't actually /named/ until the last film. Earlier
    he's called "Spudsy".
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Bobbie Sellers on Thu Oct 17 12:01:18 2024
    I. Preface

    Bobbie Sellers wrote:
    Don wrote:

    <snip>


    Robin Cook's mentioned at the reddit link. My followup pertains to Cook. >>>>
    Edgar Allan Poe (EAP) invented the detective genre. EAP's sleuth took
    the form of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, who triumphed through
    thoughtfulness. Dupin believed the game of chess suitable for
    developing mental prowess.

    EAP nemesis Arthur Conan Doyle followed in Poe's footsteps. Doyle
    projected his own drug use into Holmes to twist Poe's clear thinking
    detective into mysticism. The Poe-Doyle nexus will be covered by me in >>>> the future.

    Well I find your logic flawed as he was writing about
    his mentor in Medical School who used science as tool in detection.
    Whether or not that mentor used stimulants is a open question
    but the detective he wrote about only used cocaine when he was
    bored by the lack of interesting crimes to investigate.

    Here's a sneak preview - a teaser to tide you over until my article
    appears about the Poe-Doyle nexus. Canon Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes
    novel, A STUDY IN SCARLET, resolutely rejects ratiocination. The excerpt
    below shows Canon-Doyle's pathetic attempt to try to belittle Dupin's disciplined deliberations:

    "Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. "No doubt you think that
    you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin," he observed.
    "Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That
    trick of his of breaking in on his friends' thoughts with an
    apropos remark after a quarter of an hour's silence is really
    very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no
    doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared
    to imagine."

    <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/244/244-h/244-h.htm>

    ========================================================================

    II. CRITICAL by Robin Cook

    This is the seventh installment of the Jack Stapleton / Laurie
    Montgomery series. Jack and Laurie both work "down in the pit" (the
    autopsy room) as medical examiners at the Office of the Chief Medical
    Examiner in Manhattan.
    At times it's prone to be a political place, particularly in high
    profile cases - deaths with enough celebrity involvement, scandalous
    stink, or the like, to attract mass media attention.

    Synopsis:

    In 1977 Robin Cook’s second book, COMA, catapulted him into
    the limelight, and he has been a bestselling author ever
    since. He is the "father" of the medical thriller, and his
    27th effort, CRITICAL, is another fast-paced, character-
    driven chiller. This time he challenges the notion of
    "specialized private hospitals" that resemble hotels and
    are stockholder-owned. ...

    (excerpt)

    <https://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/critical>



    Angela Dawson, M.D., appears to have it all ...

    Angela founds a start-up, Angels Healthcare, then prepares
    to take it public. With a controlling interest in three
    busy specialty hospitals in New York City and plans for
    others in Miami and Los Angeles, the future looks very
    bright for her. Confident in her abilities as both doctor
    and businesswoman, and virtually assured of finally
    controlling her own destiny, Angela is on the verge of
    seeing her ambitions fulfilled.

    But then a surge of drug-resistant staph infections in all
    three hospitals devastates Angela's carefully constructed
    world. Not only do the infections result in deaths of
    patients but the fatalities cause a serious cash-flow
    problem, which puts her company's imminent IPO in jeopardy.

    (excerpt)

    <https://robincook.com/product/critical>

    Review:

    CRITICAL follows formula and thereby satisfies me as a Cook fan. The
    author uses a Dupinesque discipline to methodically manufacture make
    believe. Here's part of the process employed to cook up (so to speak)
    best sellers:
    '
    I plan very carefully. I make extensive outlines on large
    pieces of paper, with tiny writing, so I can get as much
    on that paper as possible, and then I draw arrows and move
    things around. If I learned anything in college, going back
    to the beginning of the computer age and learning how to
    program computers, I learned that you had to know exactly
    where you were going. I apply that same sort of methodology
    to planning a book. I didn't outline my first book very well,
    but I outlined Coma extremely well so that when I started
    writing, I knew everything that was going to happen. That's
    how I've continued to write my books. If I was a more trained
    writer, I might not have to outline as much as I do.

    <https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/5iLJ9YOIReV6YLhVtLFLTV>

    * * * Spoiler * * *


    At long last we finally arrive at the hard science part of the story.
    It pertains to how methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

    can invade and multiply within acanthamoeba, similar to
    legionella, the cause of Legionnaire's disease. Since
    acanthamoeba normally eat bacteria, it is interesting to
    wonder how the MRSA and legionella have developed
    antiamoebic resistance, if you will, and how molecularly
    similar the process is to their antibiotic resistance.

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bobbie Sellers@21:1/5 to Robert Carnegie on Sat Oct 19 16:21:37 2024
    On 10/19/24 15:01, Robert Carnegie wrote:
    On 11/10/2024 20:03, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
    Agatha Christie restored Poe's idealized detective. Her character,
    Hercule Poirot, also brings back the Francophilia found in Poe's
    Dupin.

         Pardon me but Poirot is a Belgian. Nothing to do with Some
    imagained Francophilia.

    Also, he has aeveral unlikeable qualities.
    Such as obsession with grooming his moustache.

    If you are so bold as to wear a mustache
    then you had better expect to spend time grooming
    it. He wants to present a certain image to the
    world of a very careful and thoughtful person so
    grooming, waxing, trimming and shaping are a
    necessity. IMHO. Oh and it keeps the little gray
    cells engaged.

    The French at certain time periods have been
    thought by other nations to be quite logical so
    French Detectives come to the fore.

    bliss

    --
    b l i s s dash s f 4 e v e r at d s l e x t r e m e dot c o m

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sun Oct 20 13:25:48 2024
    Robert Carnegie <[email protected]> wrote:
    On 11/10/2024 20:03, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
    Agatha Christie restored Poe's idealized detective. Her character,
    Hercule Poirot, also brings back the Francophilia found in Poe's Dupin. >>
        Pardon me but Poirot is a Belgian. Nothing to do with Some
    imagained Francophilia.

    Also, he has aeveral unlikeable qualities.
    Such as obsession with grooming his moustache.

    I found this amusing as a kid, because in Hawaii where I lived at the time, grooming your moustache is a signal that you wish to purchase marijuana. --scott
    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Scott Dorsey on Sun Oct 20 16:42:08 2024
    Scott Dorsey wrote:
    Robert Carnegie wrote:
    Bobbie Sellers wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Agatha Christie restored Poe's idealized detective. Her character, >>>>>> Hercule Poirot, also brings back the Francophilia found in Poe's Dupin. >>>
    ????????Pardon me but Poirot is a Belgian. Nothing to do with Some
    imagained Francophilia.

    Also, he has aeveral unlikeable qualities.
    Such as obsession with grooming his moustache.

    I found this amusing as a kid, because in Hawaii where I lived at the time, grooming your moustache is a signal that you wish to purchase marijuana.

    A female medical director recently told me about another Hawaiian
    flavored signal: the upside down pineapple. You see it on keychain
    fobs or on the back windows of cars and trucks. It denotes a swinger.

    Bobby Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his
    (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to
    disagree.)

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bobbie Sellers@21:1/5 to Don on Sun Oct 20 14:29:36 2024
    On 10/20/24 09:42, Don wrote:
    Scott Dorsey wrote:
    Robert Carnegie wrote:
    Bobbie Sellers wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Agatha Christie restored Poe's idealized detective. Her character, >>>>>>> Hercule Poirot, also brings back the Francophilia found in Poe's Dupin. >>>>
    ????????Pardon me but Poirot is a Belgian. Nothing to do with Some
    imagained Francophilia.

    Also, he has aeveral unlikeable qualities.
    Such as obsession with grooming his moustache.

    I found this amusing as a kid, because in Hawaii where I lived at the time, >> grooming your moustache is a signal that you wish to purchase marijuana.

    A female medical director recently told me about another Hawaiian
    flavored signal: the upside down pineapple. You see it on keychain
    fobs or on the back windows of cars and trucks. It denotes a swinger.

    Bobby Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his
    (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to
    disagree.)

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God. tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    Since you cannot spell my name correctly I will agree to disagree with your opinion on Poirot, Don. It is obvious to me
    that you are suffering from a visual handicap so I will not
    say that you imagine Francophilia where none exists. I will
    further not accuse you of Francophobis

    bliss-full of sweetness and some light today.

    --
    b l i s s dash s f 4 e v e r at d s l e x t r e m e dot c o m

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Bobbie Sellers on Mon Oct 21 00:43:48 2024
    Bobbie Sellers wrote:
    Don wrote:

    <snip>

    Bobby Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his
    (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their
    Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to
    disagree.)

    Since you cannot spell my name correctly I will agree to disagree with your opinion on Poirot, Don. It is obvious to me
    that you are suffering from a visual handicap so I will not
    say that you imagine Francophilia where none exists. I will
    further not accuse you of Francophobis

    A thousand pardons Bobbie. Something unrelated only now occurs, although
    it's been there all along. How impolitic of me!

    Allow me to atone. Replace "Francophilia" with "Frenchness." As in
    Poirot's clear and logical mind demonstrates his Frenchness. Regard
    Poirot's Francophilia a regretable mistake made in haste to appease
    the almighty alliteration.
    At the time my little grey cells told me it was wrong. But synonym
    fossick fatigue forced me to post it as is.

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Bobbie Sellers@21:1/5 to Don on Sun Oct 20 17:58:01 2024
    On 10/20/24 17:43, Don wrote:
    Bobbie Sellers wrote:
    Don wrote:

    <snip>

    Bobby Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his
    (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their
    Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to
    disagree.)

    Since you cannot spell my name correctly I will agree to disagree with
    your opinion on Poirot, Don. It is obvious to me
    that you are suffering from a visual handicap so I will not
    say that you imagine Francophilia where none exists. I will
    further not accuse you of Francophobis

    A thousand pardons Bobbie. Something unrelated only now occurs, although
    it's been there all along. How impolitic of me!

    Allow me to atone. Replace "Francophilia" with "Frenchness." As in
    Poirot's clear and logical mind demonstrates his Frenchness. Regard
    Poirot's Francophilia a regretable mistake made in haste to appease
    the almighty alliteration.
    At the time my little grey cells told me it was wrong. But synonym fossick fatigue forced me to post it as is.

    Danke,

    Have you considered the possibility that you are discounting Belgian culture of the presumed time? Do you remember that he was up
    and coming in the Belgian Police when he encountered a case that it
    was un-politic to solve? Now you might make the argument that many
    European States and even in the Americas, France was the nation to
    look to for fashion and style. But that is not Franco-philia but
    the desire for style and to be thought to be fashionably attired
    and hair styled in the the latest mode.

    bliss

    --
    b l i s s dash s f 4 e v e r at d s l e x t r e m e dot c o m

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Bobbie Sellers on Mon Oct 21 01:53:20 2024
    Bobbie Sellers wrote:
    Don wrote:

    <snip>

    A thousand pardons Bobbie. Something unrelated only now occurs, although
    it's been there all along. How impolitic of me!

    Allow me to atone. Replace "Francophilia" with "Frenchness." As in
    Poirot's clear and logical mind demonstrates his Frenchness. Regard
    Poirot's Francophilia a regretable mistake made in haste to appease
    the almighty alliteration.
    At the time my little grey cells told me it was wrong. But synonym
    fossick fatigue forced me to post it as is.

    Danke,

    Have you considered the possibility that you are discounting Belgian culture of the presumed time? Do you remember that he was up
    and coming in the Belgian Police when he encountered a case that it
    was un-politic to solve? Now you might make the argument that many
    European States and even in the Americas, France was the nation to
    look to for fashion and style. But that is not Franco-philia but
    the desire for style and to be thought to be fashionably attired
    and hair styled in the the latest mode.

    FWIW, French/Franco fashionability finds favor with the almighty
    alliteration.

    The un-politic story rings a bell. As soon as FORBIDDEN THOUGHTS plays
    out for the second time on my mp3 player during dog walks, all Agatha audiobooks will get another hearing and my impressions notated this
    time through.

    # # #

    On a different note, many FORBIDDEN THOUGHTS stories seem stylistically
    similar to those found in Bradbury's early period. With an occasional
    twist of plot added in the style of Serling.

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Robert Woodward@21:1/5 to William Hyde on Sun Oct 20 21:44:55 2024
    In article <vf3fsl$h0gu$[email protected]>,
    William Hyde <[email protected]> wrote:

    Don wrote:

    Bobby Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his
    (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to disagree.)


    Read the books, and you will understand.


    It has been a few decades since I have read any of the Hercule Poirot
    stories, but I don't remember any comment that he was a Francophone.
    That he almost certainly was one was obvious.

    --
    "We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
    Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_. —-----------------------------------------------------
    Robert Woodward [email protected]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Robert Woodward on Mon Oct 21 15:09:37 2024
    Robert Woodward wrote:
    William Hyde wrote:
    Don wrote:

    Bobb[ie] Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his >> > (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their
    Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to
    disagree.)


    Read the books, and you will understand.


    It has been a few decades since I have read any of the Hercule Poirot stories, but I don't remember any comment that he was a Francophone.
    That he almost certainly was one was obvious.

    It's fun for fiction fans to fuss budget over the nuances of Poirot's psychological proclivity for French. (Christie's own Francophilia's
    beyond doubt, at least for me.)
    Regardless, ratiocination's ready to resolve this riddle.
    POIROT'S EARLY CASES is a favorite, packed with Poirot parlance. The
    stories are splendidly sprinkled with Fench. He uses Mon Dieu! (My God!)
    in four of the stories:

    "The Affair at the Victory Ball"

    'Aha!’ said Poirot. 'Aha! Mon Dieu! Japp, that gives one
    to think, does it not?'

    "The Double Clue"

    'What a woman!’ cried Poirot enthusiastically as we
    descended the stairs. 'Mon Dieu, quelle femme!'

    "The King of Clubs"

    'Mon Dieu, I cannot always be talking blood and thunder!’

    "The Lost Mine"

    "He turned up that evening - Mon dieu, what a figure!"

    "Parbleu!" (Heavens above!) is used in three stories. These examples
    illustrate how Poirot reverts to French when surprised. Such behavior
    indicates French serves as his mother tongue.

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Mon Oct 21 08:53:21 2024
    On Sun, 20 Oct 2024 21:44:55 -0700, Robert Woodward
    <[email protected]> wrote:

    In article <vf3fsl$h0gu$[email protected]>,
    William Hyde <[email protected]> wrote:

    Don wrote:

    Bobby Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his
    (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their
    Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to
    disagree.)


    Read the books, and you will understand.


    It has been a few decades since I have read any of the Hercule Poirot >stories, but I don't remember any comment that he was a Francophone.
    That he almost certainly was one was obvious.

    I think you mean "Francophile". He is, after all, a French-speaking
    Belgian. And proud of it.
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to Don on Mon Oct 21 08:52:07 2024
    On Mon, 21 Oct 2024 15:09:37 -0000 (UTC), Don <[email protected]> wrote:

    Robert Woodward wrote:
    William Hyde wrote:
    Don wrote:

    Bobb[ie] Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his >>> > (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their
    Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to
    disagree.)


    Read the books, and you will understand.


    It has been a few decades since I have read any of the Hercule Poirot
    stories, but I don't remember any comment that he was a Francophone.
    That he almost certainly was one was obvious.

    It's fun for fiction fans to fuss budget over the nuances of Poirot's >psychological proclivity for French. (Christie's own Francophilia's
    beyond doubt, at least for me.)
    Regardless, ratiocination's ready to resolve this riddle.
    POIROT'S EARLY CASES is a favorite, packed with Poirot parlance. The
    stories are splendidly sprinkled with Fench. He uses Mon Dieu! (My God!)
    in four of the stories:

    "The Affair at the Victory Ball"

    'Aha!’ said Poirot. 'Aha! Mon Dieu! Japp, that gives one
    to think, does it not?'

    "The Double Clue"

    'What a woman!’ cried Poirot enthusiastically as we
    descended the stairs. 'Mon Dieu, quelle femme!'

    "The King of Clubs"

    'Mon Dieu, I cannot always be talking blood and thunder!’

    "The Lost Mine"

    "He turned up that evening - Mon dieu, what a figure!"

    "Parbleu!" (Heavens above!) is used in three stories. These examples >illustrate how Poirot reverts to French when surprised. Such behavior >indicates French serves as his mother tongue.

    As one would expect of a (French-speaking) Belgian.

    You did know that Belgium is linguistically mixed, right?
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to Don on Mon Oct 21 09:01:29 2024
    On Sun, 20 Oct 2024 16:42:08 -0000 (UTC), Don <[email protected]> wrote:

    Scott Dorsey wrote:
    Robert Carnegie wrote:
    Bobbie Sellers wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Agatha Christie restored Poe's idealized detective. Her character, >>>>>>> Hercule Poirot, also brings back the Francophilia found in Poe's Dupin. >>>>
    ????????Pardon me but Poirot is a Belgian. Nothing to do with Some
    imagained Francophilia.

    Also, he has aeveral unlikeable qualities.
    Such as obsession with grooming his moustache.

    I found this amusing as a kid, because in Hawaii where I lived at the time, >> grooming your moustache is a signal that you wish to purchase marijuana.

    A female medical director recently told me about another Hawaiian
    flavored signal: the upside down pineapple. You see it on keychain
    fobs or on the back windows of cars and trucks. It denotes a swinger.

    Bobby Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his
    (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their >Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to
    disagree.)

    Apart from his correcting anyone who calls him "French" to say
    "Belgian"?

    A true Francophile would be proud to be mistaken for a Frenchman.
    Poirot is annoyed.
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Scott Dorsey@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Mon Oct 21 23:00:12 2024
    In article <[email protected]>, Don <[email protected]> wrote:
    Allow me to atone. Replace "Francophilia" with "Frenchness." As in
    Poirot's clear and logical mind demonstrates his Frenchness. Regard
    Poirot's Francophilia a regretable mistake made in haste to appease
    the almighty alliteration.

    But he isn't French. He's one of those deepfrying sorts.
    --scott

    --
    "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Scott Dorsey on Tue Oct 22 00:48:37 2024
    Scott Dorsey wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Allow me to atone. Replace "Francophilia" with "Frenchness." As in
    Poirot's clear and logical mind demonstrates his Frenchness. Regard >>Poirot's Francophilia a regretable mistake made in haste to appease
    the almighty alliteration.

    But he isn't French. He's one of those deepfrying sorts.

    Agreed. He isn't French. He doesn't want to be French. Yet he cogitates
    with a French mindset. From a neologistical perspective, is
    "Francophrenic" fit for purpose in this case?


    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From The Horny Goat@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Mon Oct 21 17:35:55 2024
    On Mon, 21 Oct 2024 08:53:21 -0700, Paul S Person
    <[email protected]d> wrote:

    It has been a few decades since I have read any of the Hercule Poirot=20 >>stories, but I don't remember any comment that he was a Francophone.=20 >>That he almost certainly was one was obvious.

    I think you mean "Francophile". He is, after all, a French-speaking
    Belgian. And proud of it.

    No - "Francophile" simply means he admires French culture
    "Francophone" means he actually speaks French.

    While they often go together, there is a French language diaspora
    beyond France - Belgium, Luxembourg, many of the former French
    colonies, Quebec, northern New Brunswick just for starters. French is
    also spoken in Andorra though the usual language is Catalan.

    (There's even a French language colony in Winnipeg which is 1400 miles
    W of Montreal including - L�Universit� de Saint-Boniface - it was a
    college when I was there and my boss of long ago was an alumnus and
    hung his dipoma (entirely in French) on his wall at work behind his
    desk - he later got head-hunted by a Montreal company and when I
    visited him in his new office he told me he had no trouble speaking to
    them but had to get up to speed in French language computer industry
    terms which took him at most a week. It seems l'Office de la Langue
    Francaise (aka "le Language Police" was VERY down on tech-speak with
    obvious English roots thus "progiciel" instead of "le software" etc
    etc)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Scott Dorsey on Tue Oct 22 02:09:43 2024
    Scott Dorsey wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Allow me to atone. Replace "Francophilia" with "Frenchness." As in
    Poirot's clear and logical mind demonstrates his Frenchness. Regard >>Poirot's Francophilia a regretable mistake made in haste to appease
    the almighty alliteration.

    But he isn't French. He's one of those deepfrying sorts.

    Agreed. He isn't French. He doesn't want to be French. Yet he cogitates
    with a French mindset. From a neologistical perspective, is
    "Francophrenic" fit for purpose in this case?

    Addendum:

    In retrospect, rigorous ratiocination requires recognition of two types
    of thought: verbal and visual. Is French art intrinsically recognizable
    as such?



    Humans rely on at least two modes of thought: verbal (inner
    speech) and visual (imagery). Are these modes independent,
    or does engaging in one entail engaging in the other?

    <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5448978/>



    The power of picturing thoughts

    Visual images often intrude on verbal thinking, study says,
    suggesting that pondering with images may be hardwired

    <https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/05/visual-images-often-intrude-on-verbal-thinking-study-says/>



    ObSF (first posted in 2020):

    Beware the Hieronymus Bosch

    "Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true!"

    "Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life."

    "To sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there's the rub,
    For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,"

    Suppose God delivers the afterlife you crave. For instance, if you don't believe in an afterlife, then your afterlife is nihility itself. You get nonexistence because you want it.
    An afterlife qualifies as posthuman on a most personal level. All of
    which brings us to BABYLON SISTERS AND OTHER POSTHUMANS (di filippo).
    Or, more specifically, to a short story in the di filippo collection
    called "a short course in art appreciation."
    In the story, a peptidergic pill induces a physiological, perceptual
    change in users. They experience a different "perceptiverse" based upon
    the pill ingested. A Dali pill delivers a Dali environment. A Vermeer
    pill provides a Vermeer perceptiverse, and so on. As art aficionado
    Alena enthuses:

    "By taking this new neurotropin we'll be enabled to see not
    /like/ Rembrandt, but as if /inhabiting/ Rembrandt's canvases!"

    There's a hitch, of course. A hitch to provide story tension.

    Note: This thread's title is not a spoiler. Bosch isn't in the story.

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Paul S Person@21:1/5 to Don on Tue Oct 22 09:00:01 2024
    On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 02:09:43 -0000 (UTC), Don <[email protected]> wrote:

    Scott Dorsey wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Allow me to atone. Replace "Francophilia" with "Frenchness." As in >>>Poirot's clear and logical mind demonstrates his Frenchness. Regard >>>Poirot's Francophilia a regretable mistake made in haste to appease
    the almighty alliteration.

    But he isn't French. He's one of those deepfrying sorts.

    Agreed. He isn't French. He doesn't want to be French. Yet he cogitates
    with a French mindset. From a neologistical perspective, is
    "Francophrenic" fit for purpose in this case?

    If you say so.

    I don't think a culture that proclaims Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!
    and then discriminates against a specific religion and refuses to
    recognize as French anyone who doesn't /look/ French has a mindset
    worth having.

    Poirot clearly does have a mindset worth having. But then, he's
    Belgian.

    Addendum:

    In retrospect, rigorous ratiocination requires recognition of two types
    of thought: verbal and visual. Is French art intrinsically recognizable
    as such?



    Humans rely on at least two modes of thought: verbal (inner
    speech) and visual (imagery). Are these modes independent,
    or does engaging in one entail engaging in the other?

    <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5448978/>



    The power of picturing thoughts

    Visual images often intrude on verbal thinking, study says,
    suggesting that pondering with images may be hardwired

    <https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/05/visual-images-often-intrude-on-verbal-thinking-study-says/>



    ObSF (first posted in 2020):

    Beware the Hieronymus Bosch

    "Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true!"

    "Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life."

    "To sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there's the rub,
    For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,"

    Suppose God delivers the afterlife you crave. For instance, if you don't >believe in an afterlife, then your afterlife is nihility itself. You get >nonexistence because you want it.
    An afterlife qualifies as posthuman on a most personal level. All of
    which brings us to BABYLON SISTERS AND OTHER POSTHUMANS (di filippo).
    Or, more specifically, to a short story in the di filippo collection
    called "a short course in art appreciation."
    In the story, a peptidergic pill induces a physiological, perceptual
    change in users. They experience a different "perceptiverse" based upon
    the pill ingested. A Dali pill delivers a Dali environment. A Vermeer
    pill provides a Vermeer perceptiverse, and so on. As art aficionado
    Alena enthuses:

    "By taking this new neurotropin we'll be enabled to see not
    /like/ Rembrandt, but as if /inhabiting/ Rembrandt's canvases!"

    There's a hitch, of course. A hitch to provide story tension.

    Note: This thread's title is not a spoiler. Bosch isn't in the story.

    You might want to see /The Stendhal Syndrome/, in which the
    protaganist literally enters great works of art. No drugs required.

    Warning: this is a Dario Argento film and very violent. It is "Not
    Rated" and, in this case, that is probably because they saw no point
    in paying for an NC-17 rating.
    --
    "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
    Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
    Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Don@21:1/5 to Lynn McGuire on Wed Oct 23 04:56:44 2024
    Lynn McGuire wrote:
    Paul S Person wrote:
    Don wrote:
    Robert Woodward wrote:
    William Hyde wrote:
    Don wrote:

    Bobb[ie] Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian precludes his
    (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their >>>>>> Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to >>>>>> disagree.)


    Read the books, and you will understand.


    It has been a few decades since I have read any of the Hercule Poirot
    stories, but I don't remember any comment that he was a Francophone.
    That he almost certainly was one was obvious.

    It's fun for fiction fans to fuss budget over the nuances of Poirot's
    psychological proclivity for French. (Christie's own Francophilia's
    beyond doubt, at least for me.)
    Regardless, ratiocination's ready to resolve this riddle.
    POIROT'S EARLY CASES is a favorite, packed with Poirot parlance. The
    stories are splendidly sprinkled with Fench. He uses Mon Dieu! (My God!) >>> in four of the stories:

    "The Affair at the Victory Ball"

    'Aha!' said Poirot. 'Aha! Mon Dieu! Japp, that gives one
    to think, does it not?'

    "The Double Clue"

    'What a woman!’ cried Poirot enthusiastically as we
    descended the stairs. 'Mon Dieu, quelle femme!'

    "The King of Clubs"


    'Mon Dieu, I cannot always be talking blood and thunder!'

    "The Lost Mine"

    'He turned up that evening - Mon dieu, what a figure!'

    "Parbleu!" (Heavens above!) is used in three stories. These examples
    illustrate how Poirot reverts to French when surprised. Such behavior
    indicates French serves as his mother tongue.

    As one would expect of a (French-speaking) Belgian.

    You did know that Belgium is linguistically mixed, right?

    My great grandparents were immigrants from Belgium in 1903 or so. Their native language was Flemish as they were Flemish. They were refugees,
    having been burned out by one the guilds.

    My great grandfather spoke Flemish, German, Dutch, French, and English.
    His first job in the USA was an interpreter in a water pump factory in Illinois that had 2,000 immigrants working in it.

    Your great-grandparent's story is one of my favorites, Lynn. His IQ
    probably went deep into the Right Hand Side of the chart.

    FWIW, my own Belgian story follows.

    A former clinical associate of mine came from Belgium. He worked as a
    criminal psychologist. His case load included one of the James Byrd Jr. murderers.
    The psychologist warned me about pedophiles who exploited Lime Wire
    back in the day to store their porn on other people's PCs. It's my understanding when law enforcement discovers pedo porn on a PC its
    owner goes to prison.
    One of his patients proclaimed it was disrespectful to look the
    patient in the eye when you spoke to him. Yet it was also disrespectful
    to not look him in the eye. This patient's peculiar psychopathic
    playbook ensured whatever you did was wrong - with violence dispensed to discourage disrespect in the future.

    My newfound appreciation for ratiocination, in the style of Belgian
    Piorot, provides provisional insight into the mental ritual performed by
    the psychologist to pick passwords. They were long, intricate, and
    informed by Dan Brown's THE DA VINCI CODE.
    Whenever he needed to enter a password the psychologist peered off
    into open space, presumably to mentally calculate it. At such times
    everything stood still. Seconds slowly passed until you were sure he
    would never remember it ... then ... voila! He suddenly sprang to life,
    quickly scribbled it down on a notepad, and keyed it into his PC.
    His office furniture was a little ... different. His chairs looked
    like surrealistically shape shifted Catholic kneelers sculpted to
    slacker specs. You sat with your calves under your thighs and no chair
    back. It gave the impression it was good for your posture, without
    knowing exactly why.

    ObSF:

    "What is your brother's name?" I asked, trying to adjust
    myself to this new idea.

    "Achille Poirot," replied Poirot gravely. "He lives near
    Spa in Belgium."

    THE BIG FOUR

    Spa is in the primarily French speaking part of Belgium.

    Danke,

    --
    Don.......My cat's )\._.,--....,'``. https://crcomp.net/reviews.php telltale tall tail /, _.. \ _\ (`._ ,. Walk humbly with thy God.
    tells tall tales.. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.' Make 1984 fiction again.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Dimensional Traveler@21:1/5 to Cryptoengineer on Wed Oct 23 08:10:07 2024
    On 10/23/2024 5:52 AM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
    On 10/21/2024 11:52 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
    On Mon, 21 Oct 2024 15:09:37 -0000 (UTC), Don <[email protected]> wrote:

    Robert Woodward wrote:
    William Hyde wrote:
    Don wrote:

    Bobb[ie] Sellers, how do you imagine Poirot's being Belgian
    precludes his
    (and Christie's own) Francophilia? Or perhaps, as you see it, their >>>>>> Francophilia is also imaginary? (In the latter case we'll agree to >>>>>> disagree.)


    Read the books, and you will understand.


    It has been a few decades since I have read any of the Hercule Poirot
    stories, but I don't remember any comment that he was a Francophone.
    That he almost certainly was one was obvious.

    It's fun for fiction fans to fuss budget over the nuances of Poirot's
    psychological proclivity for French. (Christie's own Francophilia's
    beyond doubt, at least for me.)
        Regardless, ratiocination's ready to resolve this riddle.
    POIROT'S EARLY CASES is a favorite, packed with Poirot parlance. The
    stories are splendidly sprinkled with Fench. He uses Mon Dieu! (My God!) >>> in four of the stories:

        "The Affair at the Victory Ball"

            'Aha!’ said Poirot. 'Aha! Mon Dieu! Japp, that gives one
            to think, does it not?'

        "The Double Clue"

            'What a woman!’ cried Poirot enthusiastically as we >>>         descended the stairs. 'Mon Dieu, quelle femme!'

        "The King of Clubs"

            'Mon Dieu, I cannot always be talking blood and thunder!’

        "The Lost Mine"

            "He turned up that evening - Mon dieu, what a figure!"

    "Parbleu!" (Heavens above!) is used in three stories. These examples
    illustrate how Poirot reverts to French when surprised. Such behavior
    indicates French serves as his mother tongue.

    As one would expect of a (French-speaking) Belgian.

    You did know that Belgium is linguistically mixed, right?

    I lived in Belgium for 6 years in the 70s, in Waterloo. I
    could see the monument from my house.

    The north speaks Dutch, and the people are 'Flems'
    The south speaks French, and the people are 'Walloons'.
    There was more than a little friction when I was there.

    Brussels is officially bilingual, but in practice is a
    French island surrounded by Dutch speakers (the border
    is about 10 miles south of town).

    There's also a small area in the far east of the country
    which speaks German.

    That's what happens when all your neighbors insist on conquering you so
    they can fight each other. :P

    --
    I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
    dirty old man.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)