>> ^Fletch:

Everything NDT says sounds like the most astounding fact he's ever heard, and that you should be astounded by it too. His meter - every enunciation, accentuation, and pause - sounds affected and I, for some reason, can't stand to listen to him. I've tried. He talks about things I'm interested in and I enjoy reading what he has written (I have "Pluto Files" and "Space Chronicles" on my Kindle), but when he starts talking, it just sounds like he's talking to five year-olds to me.
F ck it, upvote.


Maybe it's an act, but I genuinely believe he just really loves what he does. To me, that is fantastic to hear.

>> ^Fletch:

...but when he starts talking, it just sounds like he's talking to five year-olds to me.
F ck it, upvote.


It's because he knows that his audience is primarily Americans of average education. I'm not saying this to be insulting, but actually quite the opposite. Just because you and I can solve partial differential equations, does not mean that everyone can, or that everyone needs to in order to fully comprehend the mind-blowing awesomeness of science and astronomy. When I was 10, Carl Sagan had that affect on me, while at the same time being criticized by the "real" scientific community for dumbing down the subject.

Meanwhile, he inspired me and a generation to explore things which may seem frighteningly complex when presented any other way.

I think that the root of it is that you're right. He's not talking to you. He is talking to the five-year olds. And he's damn good at it too. Try listening like a five-year old. It might blow your mind.

Everything NDT says sounds like the most astounding fact he's ever heard, and that you should be astounded by it too. His meter - every enunciation, accentuation, and pause - sounds affected and I, for some reason, can't stand to listen to him. I've tried. He talks about things I'm interested in and I enjoy reading what he has written (I have "Pluto Files" and "Space Chronicles" on my Kindle), but when he starts talking, it just sounds like he's talking to five year-olds to me.

F*ck it, upvote.

SREDNI VASHTAR

Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was silky and effete, and counted for little, but his opinion was endorsed by Mrs. De Ropp, who counted for nearly everything. Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian, and in his eyes she represented those three-fifths of the world that are necessary and disagreeable and real; the other two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed up in himself and his imagination. One of these days Conradin supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary things---such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out dulness. Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness, he would have succumbed long ago.

Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that thwarting him ``for his good'' was a duty which she did not find particularly irksome. Conradin hated her with a desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his guardian, and from the realm of his imagination she was locked out---an unclean thing, which should find no entrance.

In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many windows that were ready to open with a message not to do this or that, or a reminder that medicines were due, he found little attraction. The few fruit-trees that it contained were set jealously apart from his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind blooming in an arid waste; it would probably have been difficult to find a market-gardener who would have offered ten shillings for their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten corner, however, almost hidden behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool-shed of respectable proportions, and within its walls Conradin found a haven, something that took on the varying aspects of a playroom and a cathedral. He had peopled it with a legion of familiar phantoms, evoked partly from fragments of history and partly from his own brain, but it also boasted two inmates of flesh and blood. In one corner lived a ragged-plumaged Houdan hen, on which the boy lavished an affection that had scarcely another outlet. Further back in the gloom stood a large hutch, divided into two compartments, one of which was fronted with close iron bars. This was the abode of a large polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher-boy had once smuggled, cage and all, into its present quarters, in exchange for a long-secreted hoard of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe, sharp-fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession. Its very presence in the tool-shed was a secret and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the knowledge of the Woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin. And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god and a religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a week at a church near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church service was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the dim and musty silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the wooden hutch where dwelt Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers in their season and scarlet berries in the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for he was a god who laid some special stress on the fierce impatient side of things, as opposed to the Woman's religion, which, as far as Conradin could observe, went to great lengths in the contrary direction. And on great festivals powdered nutmeg was strewn in front of his hutch, an important feature of the offering being that the nutmeg had to be stolen. These festivals were of irregular occurrence, and were chiefly appointed to celebrate some passing event. On one occasion, when Mrs. De Ropp suffered from acute toothache for three days, Conradin kept up the festival during the entire three days, and almost succeeded in persuading himself that Sredni Vashtar was personally responsible for the toothache. If the malady had lasted for another day the supply of nutmeg would have given out.

The Houdan hen was never drawn into the cult of Sredni Vashtar. Conradin had long ago settled that she was an Anabaptist. He did not pretend to have the remotest knowledge as to what an Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that it was dashing and not very respectable. Mrs. De Ropp was the ground plan on which he based and detested all respectability.

After a while Conradin's absorption in the tool-shed began to attract the notice of his guardian. ``It is not good for him to be pottering down there in all weathers,'' she promptly decided, and at breakfast one morning she announced that the Houdan hen had been sold and taken away overnight. With her short-sighted eyes she peered at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow, which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conradin said nothing: there was nothing to be said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave her a momentary qualm, for at tea that afternoon there was toast on the table, a delicacy which she usually banned on the ground that it was bad for him; also because the making of it ``gave trouble,'' a deadly offence in the middle-class feminine eye.

``I thought you liked toast,'' she exclaimed, with an injured air, observing that he did not touch it.

``Sometimes,'' said Conradin.

In the shed that evening there was an innovation in the worship of the hutch-god. Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, tonight be asked a boon.

``Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.''

The thing was not specified. As Sredni Vashtar was a god he must be supposed to know. And choking back a sob as he looked at that other empty comer, Conradin went back to the world he so hated.

And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom, and every evening in the dusk of the tool-shed, Conradin's bitter litany went up: ``Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.''

Mrs. De Ropp noticed that the visits to the shed did not cease, and one day she made a further journey of inspection.

``What are you keeping in that locked hutch?'' she asked. ``I believe it's guinea-pigs. I'll have them all cleared away.''

Conradin shut his lips tight, but the Woman ransacked his bedroom till she found the carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched down to the shed to complete her discovery. It was a cold afternoon, and Conradin had been bidden to keep to the house. From the furthest window of the dining-room the door of the shed could just be seen beyond the corner of the shrubbery, and there Conradin stationed himself. He saw the Woman enter, and then be imagined her opening the door of the sacred hutch and peering down with her short-sighted eyes into the thick straw bed where his god lay hidden. Perhaps she would prod at the straw in her clumsy impatience. And Conradin fervently breathed his prayer for the last time. But he knew as he prayed that he did not believe. He knew that the Woman would come out presently with that pursed smile he loathed so well on her face, and that in an hour or two the gardener would carry away his wonderful god, a god no longer, but a simple brown ferret in a hutch. And he knew that the Woman would triumph always as she triumphed now, and that he would grow ever more sickly under her pestering and domineering and superior wisdom, till one day nothing would matter much more with him, and the doctor would be proved right. And in the sting and misery of his defeat, he began to chant loudly and defiantly the hymn of his threatened idol:

Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.

And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and drew closer to the window-pane. The door of the shed still stood ajar as it had been left, and the minutes were slipping by. They were long minutes, but they slipped by nevertheless. He watched the starlings running and flying in little parties across the lawn; he counted them over and over again, with one eye always on that swinging door. A sour-faced maid came in to lay the table for tea, and still Conradin stood and waited and watched. Hope had crept by inches into his heart, and now a look of triumph began to blaze in his eyes that had only known the wistful patience of defeat. Under his breath, with a furtive exultation, he began once again the pæan of victory and devastation. And presently his eyes were rewarded: out through that doorway came a long, low, yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a-blink at the waning daylight, and dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat. Conradin dropped on his knees. The great polecat-ferret made its way down to a small brook at the foot of the garden, drank for a moment, then crossed a little plank bridge and was lost to sight in the bushes. Such was the passing of Sredni Vashtar.

``Tea is ready,'' said the sour-faced maid; ``where is the mistress?'' ``She went down to the shed some time ago,'' said Conradin. And while the maid went to summon her mistress to tea, Conradin fished a toasting-fork out of the sideboard drawer and proceeded to toast himself a piece of bread. And during the toasting of it and the buttering of it with much butter and the slow enjoyment of eating it, Conradin listened to the noises and silences which fell in quick spasms beyond the dining-room door. The loud foolish screaming of the maid, the answering chorus of wondering ejaculations from the kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps and hurried embassies for outside help, and then, after a lull, the scared sobbings and the shuffling tread of those who bore a heavy burden into the house.

``Whoever will break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the life of me!'' exclaimed a shrill voice. And while they debated the matter among themselves, Conradin made himself another piece of toast.

>> ^millertime1211:

Pennsylvania's wiretapping law is a "two-party consent" law. Pennsylvania makes it a crime to intercept or record a telephone call or conversation unless all parties to the conversation consent. See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5703 (link is to the entire code, choose Title 18, Part II, Article F, Chapter 57, Subchapter B, and then the specific provision).
This is similar to what happened here http://www.popehat.com/2010/04/14/embarrass-a-cop-in-maryland-thatll-be-five-years-in-jail/

However on September 27, 2010, some criminal charges against Graber were dropped. Harford County Circuit Court Judge Emory A Plitt Jr. dismissed four of the seven charges filed against Anthony Graber, leaving only traffic code violations. The judge ruled that Maryland's wire tap law allows recording of both voice and sound in areas where privacy cannot be expected and that a police officer on a traffic stop has no expectation of privacy.

This situation is no different.

Five years and nine months for me. And that is after lurking for a bit! (As bareboards, pre-Sift crash.)

I love this place. I love the folks here. I love how smart and articulate this place is.

Thanks, @dag. You did good.

I wish I could back it up about five years. I'd go deep all the time.

I've experienced this at my workplace. We have to submit goals for where we want to be in a year, in five years, in a decade. Saying that you are happy doing what you are doing right now isn't good enough, and you HAVE to come up with someplace else in the company where you'd rather be. It's a little demoralizing that you aren't just allowed to be happy.

I agree with the previous two comments. I read the first 3 books as they came out and each one was as good as or better than the next. Then... I waited for the 4th book, and I waited, and he promised, and I waited, and he promised. Then FIVE YEARS LATER the book was released. I read the first 3 again just to bring myself up to date and then dove into the Feast for Crows. It was, sadly, not worth a 5 year wait but with it's release came the promise in the epiloge that this was only half of the story that he had written, that the other half would be released in a like sized book to be release within a year...

Cut to SIX YEARS LATER!!!!

Massive a-hole indeed.

A-hole or not I am still addicted to the written series and will buy both hardcover and kindle versions of the books that follow.

PS: YAY HBO! You ROCK!

quit watching the five year old describe logos!

FIVE YEARS, baby.

FIVE YEARS!

What would the sift be without you?

You are a quality dude. Dude.

if repeating the same nonsensical slogan over and over again is "parrying objections" then i'm an intellectual juggernaut. she didn't "steer" the conversation, she put the parking brake on. it was like watching hitchens trying to convince a five year old to put her boots on. she might as well have resorted to saying things like "nuh-ugh", "i don't wanna", "whyyyyyyyy?", and "do we have to?".
>> ^longde:

On the contrary, she parried their objections, obfuscated, and steered the discussion quite well.

>> ^Sarzy:

>> ^therealblankman:
As for consoles vs PCs, you're right of course. At least partially- I frankly got sick of spending $400 every year or so to upgrade my graphics card to be able to even play the latest and greatest, so I've given up and joined the PS3 darkside. But you know what, there's hope for that as well. Valve software is bridging that divide in the right way. I bought Portal 2 for PS3 but using a code I can also play it on my PC, and if I want to play Co-op with someone it doesn't matter whether they're on a PC or PS3 either! Maybe other publishers will do the same going forward, but I doubt it.

You know, I constantly hear that being used as an argument against PC gaming, but unless you're obsessive about getting 100+ FPS with every single setting maxed out, it's just not true. I bought the PC I'm using right now in 2007 -- a decent system, not even top of the line at the time, with a high-end video card. For the last five years or so I've been playing the latest and greatest with the settings mostly maxed out, and I've never had any major issues. I probably won't upgrade for another year or so. So I definitely call BS on the old "you have to upgrade every year!" argument.


I'll second that. As long as you build your PC with a slight thought to the future, you can go years between upgrades without losing out on gaming (especially these days with all of the ports from thousand year old consoles). Even then, if you feel that you must upgrade because you refuse to use anything other than maximum settings (in which case--why are you on a console?), a new $200-$250 video card every couple of years is generally more than sufficient to keep you near the top.

>> ^therealblankman:

As for consoles vs PCs, you're right of course. At least partially- I frankly got sick of spending $400 every year or so to upgrade my graphics card to be able to even play the latest and greatest, so I've given up and joined the PS3 darkside. But you know what, there's hope for that as well. Valve software is bridging that divide in the right way. I bought Portal 2 for PS3 but using a code I can also play it on my PC, and if I want to play Co-op with someone it doesn't matter whether they're on a PC or PS3 either! Maybe other publishers will do the same going forward, but I doubt it.


You know, I constantly hear that being used as an argument against PC gaming, but unless you're obsessive about getting 100+ FPS with every single setting maxed out, it's just not true. I bought the PC I'm using right now in 2007 -- a decent system, not even top of the line at the time, with a high-end video card. For the last five years or so I've been playing the latest and greatest with the settings mostly maxed out, and I've never had any major issues. I probably won't upgrade for another year or so. So I definitely call BS on the old "you have to upgrade every year!" argument.

Wow! Happy five years, @G-bar! I'm just glad your first video didn't include a monkey and a frog or a cat and a fart!

It's great that you've held the Sift in such high esteem all these years. Bravissimo!