The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread XLI

[Zkribbler]

I wouldn't connect this to being a liquid, because I'm pretty sure there are other materials which do so as well, or at least similar things, e.g. rubber.

...or window glass. In old houses, window panes are thicker on the bottom than on the top.

 

[Cutlass]

Looking closely, can you see any sprouted seeds?
Can you see any unsprouted seeds?

If you can find unsprouted seeds, collect them and put them between wet paper towels in a warn, dark place and see if they sprout.

Could there be any residual herbicides in the ground?

Nothing I can tell.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Then I would start over. Hold back some of the new seed for testing separately though.

 

[Samson]

...or window glass. In old houses, window panes are thicker on the bottom than on the top.

Fake news:

The observation that old windows are sometimes found to be thicker at the bottom than at the top is often offered as supporting evidence for the view that glass flows over a timescale of centuries, the assumption being that the glass has exhibited the liquid property of flowing from one shape to another. This assumption is incorrect, as once solidified, glass stops flowing. Instead, glass manufacturing processes in the past produced sheets of non-uniform thickness leading to observed sagging and ripples in old windows​

 

[thetrooper]

@Samson applying for a job @Mythbusters

 

[Samez]

Fake news:

The observation that old windows are sometimes found to be thicker at the bottom ...​

Iirc from my days at the university, there is/was still an acedemic discussion ongoing If there still is material flow going in, but the consensus back than was that the deformation would be several magnitudes smaller than the thickness difference observed due to manufacturing (as explained above).

 

[J-man]

What book should start reading next:

A dance with dragons by George RR Martin
Dune by Frank Herbert

 

[Samson]

What book should start reading next:

A dance with dragons by George RR Martin
Dune by Frank Herbert

Have you watched the TV series of the former? If you have, while the book is probably worth it the series is a massive spoiler and I think would mean that you may get more from Dune.

If not, then are you up for the whole series? If you are, I think the whole of The Song of Fire and Ice is significantly better than the whole Dune series, which gets "variable" shall we say.

If not, then I think Dune is the better stand alone book. It tells a story, and while there is plenty for the sequels to do they are not "required" in the way the rest of aSoFaI is.

 

[J-man]

Have you watched the TV series of the former? If you have, while the book is probably worth it the series is a massive spoiler and I think would mean that you may get more from Dune.

If not, then are you up for the whole series? If you are, I think the whole of The Song of Fire and Ice is significantly better than the whole Dune series, which gets "variable" shall we say.

If not, then I think Dune is the better stand alone book. It tells a story, and while there is plenty for the sequels to do they are not "required" in the way the rest of aSoFaI is.

The tv series inspired me to read the books, I've read all previous books of ASOIAF. However, book 5 is a big one and I read the original english versions, so it's actually a bit of a project.
Dune is not as big and I have the dutch version.

I think I'll read Dune and after that I start with A Dance with Dragons.

Perhaps Winds of Winter will be released the moment I finish book 5.

 

[Birdjaguar]

@J-man A Dance with Dragons for sure.

 

[GinandTonic]

... the whole Dune series, which gets "variable" shall we say.

If not, then I think Dune is the better stand alone book. It tells a story, and while there is plenty for the sequels to do they are not "required" in the way the rest of aSoFaI is.

I think I'll read Dune and after that I start with A Dance with Dragons.

For the love of god don't read the Dune sequels. Fantastic book, ignore the follow up unless you felt The Silmarillion was worth the time.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Have you watched the TV series of the former? If you have, while the book is probably worth it the series is a massive spoiler and I think would mean that you may get more from Dune.

If not, then are you up for the whole series? If you are, I think the whole of The Song of Fire and Ice is significantly better than the whole Dune series, which gets "variable" shall we say.

If not, then I think Dune is the better stand alone book. It tells a story, and while there is plenty for the sequels to do they are not "required" in the way the rest of aSoFaI is.

When I was running part of my King's Heir story past MaryKB for her feedback, she said that part of it reminded her of Game of Thrones (I'd created a couple of other kingdoms to go along with the one in the game this story is based on, and I'd upped the court intrigue and noble family interactions considerably, creating a few dozen new characters ranging from servants to monarchs, in all age groups, walks of life, and levels of education; of course some characters are secondary at best and some are tertiary, but the original game had far too few characters to make the story plausible as a prose adaptation). I do consider that a compliment as I'd never thought to be compared to a successful fantasy author. But I've never read the books and haven't seen the TV series and now I never can, until I finish my story. I don't want to be unduly influenced or accused of plagiarism.

Dune makes a satisfactory standalone novel. The protagonist succeeds and the villains are dealt with. The sequels that Frank Herbert wrote - Dune Messiah and Children of Dune complete Paul Atreides' part of the story, and that's the line where many Original Dune fans prefer to stop. God Emperor is a boring, miserable slogfest (unless you happen to love the character of Leto II, which I don't; I loathe him). Heretics and Chapterhouse feature Duncan Idaho (the one character who is present in all the FH-written Dune books).

My advice is to not waste even one nanosecond of your life reading anything by Kevin J. Anderson/Brian Herbert. It's all crap. I do recommend the Dune Encyclopedia, which was compiled by Frank Herbert's friend, Dr. Willis McNelly, and it had FH's approval (with the caveat that future novels might not align with some of the Encyclopedia's content, which was fair; the Encyclopedia only goes as far as God Emperor, as it was published before Heretics and Chapterhouse were written).

For the love of god don't read the Dune sequels. Fantastic book, ignore the follow up unless you felt The Silmarillion was worth the time.

As mentioned, the first three books by Frank Herbert are okay. The rest... depends on your tolerance level for boring characters (Leto II) and weird Bene Gesserit characters.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Dune makes a satisfactory standalone novel. The protagonist succeeds and the villains are dealt with. The sequels that Frank Herbert wrote - Dune Messiah and Children of Dune complete Paul Atreides' part of the story, and that's the line where many Original Dune fans prefer to stop.

The copy of Dune that I own is a large trilogy copy that includes Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

 

[Zkribbler]

I hate Dune. E.g. no one has been able to explain to me what the worms eat and drink.

 

[Sarin]

I hate Dune. E.g. no one has been able to explain to me what the worms eat and drink.

Obviously metal and fuel.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I hate Dune. E.g. no one has been able to explain to me what the worms eat and drink.

Hm. Once I finish unpacking my books I may be able to find an answer for you, either in the Encyclopedia or in one of the reference books (ie. The Science of Dune).

 

[Birdjaguar]

I hate Dune. E.g. no one has been able to explain to me what the worms eat and drink.

The sandworms of Arrakis are much like the whales of Earth, albeit with their own enclosed lifecycle & ecosystem. They "swim" through the sands and swallow entire pockets of spice to get at the plankton that dwell within. At the same time, however, the spice is produced by dying worms, which is what feeds the plankton. And the plankton that survive long enough eventually become worms. Dr. Liet Kynes described it thusly:

Now they had the circular relationship: little maker to pre-spice mass; little maker to shai-hulud; shai-hulud to scatter the spice upon which fed microscopic creatures called sand plankton; the sand plankton, food for shaihulud, growing, burrowing, becoming little makers.

When a sandworm swallows a spice pocket, they get their sustenance from the plankton that live within it. The worm then excretes a more refined version of the spice, which is what the plankton eats. This also spreads the spice over the desert, allowing the lifecycle to perpetuate, thus leading to more plankton, more worms, more spice. This knowledge - and the ability to interrupt the cycle - is what gave Paul Atreides his leverage over the universe. Paul and his Fremen secretly planted

a water bomb over one of the major spice pockets. Detonating the bomb would release a large quantity of The Water of Life into the pocket, killing all of the plankton and little makers, causing a chain reaction across the planet which would end all spice production.

--Omegacron

More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandworm_(Dune)

 

[J-man]

@Many_posts_above, for the love of god, we have SPOILER tags!

 

[Cutlass]

Does grass seed die? I've been trying to seed in some grass where a tree stump has rotted away. I filled the hole with dirt, added a lot of seed, and some Scotts lawn patch, which is seed, fertilizer, and mulch. And all was raked in so that the seed should be at every depth from the surface to an inch or so down. It's been watered, and it's rained a couple times, so it's not dried out. But I don't see any shoots at all coming up. So I'm wondering if the bag of seed, which has been out in the shed for I don't remember how many years, is just all dead.

Having gotten a new bag of seed, I'm getting good sprouts now. So I'll have to conclude that the old bad of seed is now dead.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@Many_posts_above, for the love of god, we have SPOILER tags!

To whom is this complaint directed?

If you're talking about spoiling the plot of Dune... the book has been out since 1965 in novel form. It was serialized in the magazines before that. Not even TrekBBS makes people spoiler a 56-year-old book.