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

[Robert Woodward]

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).

[Ahasuerus]

Post by Robert Woodward
I think authors mess up biology quite often in Science Fiction/Fantasy.

[snip]

Post by Robert Woodward
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

Post by Robert Woodward
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)?

[Don]

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by Robert Woodward
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).

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.
Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
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.

[Kevrob]

Post by Don

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by Robert Woodward
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).

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.
Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
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

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don
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

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don
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..

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Ted Nolan <tednolan>

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don
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

[James Nicoll]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don
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.

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don
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

[Don]

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by Robert Woodward
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).

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.
Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
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.

[Bobbie Sellers]

Post by Don

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by Robert Woodward
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).

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.
Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
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.

Post by Don

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don
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.

Post by Don

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don
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
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

[Paul S Person]

On Fri, 11 Oct 2024 12:03:51 -0700, Bobbie Sellers

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Don

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by Robert Woodward
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).

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.
Are you, by chance, familiar with Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy
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.

Post by Don

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don
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.

Post by Don

Post by Kevrob

Post by Don
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
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".

[Don]

I. Preface
<snip>

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Don
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.

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by Don
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.

[Bobbie Sellers]

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Don
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

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Don
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

[Don]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Don
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.

[William Hyde]

Post by Don
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.


William Hyde

[Robert Woodward]

Post by William Hyde

Post by Don
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.

[Don]

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by William Hyde

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.

[Paul S Person]

Post by Don

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by William Hyde

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!)
"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?

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Don

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by William Hyde

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!)
"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.

Lynn

[Don]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Don

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by William Hyde

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!)
"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.

[Cryptoengineer]

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Don

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by William Hyde

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!)
"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.

pt

[Dimensional Traveler]

Post by Cryptoengineer

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Don

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by William Hyde

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!)
    "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

[Paul S Person]

On Sun, 20 Oct 2024 21:44:55 -0700, Robert Woodward

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by William Hyde

Post by Don
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.

[The Horny Goat]

On Mon, 21 Oct 2024 08:53:21 -0700, Paul S Person

Post by Paul S Person

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’Université 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)

[Bobbie Sellers]

Post by Don

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Don
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.

[Don]

<snip>

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Don
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.

[Bobbie Sellers]

Post by Don
<snip>

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Don
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

[Don]

<snip>

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Don
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.

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Don
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

[Don]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Don
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.

[Don]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Don
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.

[Paul S Person]

Post by Don

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Don
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.

Post by Don
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/>
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
"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.

[Paul S Person]

Post by Don

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Don
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.

[William Hyde]

Post by Paul S Person

Post by Don

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Don
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.

Exactly.

William Hyde

[Robert Carnegie]

Post by Robert Woodward
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.

[Paul S Person]

On Sat, 12 Oct 2024 11:44:28 +0100, Robert Carnegie

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Robert Woodward
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.

[William Hyde]

Post by Paul S Person
On Sat, 12 Oct 2024 11:44:28 +0100, Robert Carnegie

Post by Robert Carnegie

Post by Robert Woodward
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.

Ken MacLeod deals with a similar loss of function in the backstory to
"The Cassini Division".

William Hyde