prillalar | The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things.

The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things.

HP: The bit of the JKR interview I found most interesting was the question about pre-Hogwarts schooling: wizard children can either go to Muggle primary schools or be taught at home, as the Weasleys were. How would sending your kids to Muggle school work? How do you keep a child of five or six from talking about magic? Or do they just assume that nobody will believe the kid if he does?

Stargate: I watched Inauguration. My total reaction: meh. I've been holding off watching Lost City until I have both parts. Cause I hate waiting for part two.

Jeremiah: I finished up the S1 DVDs. The downloading of S2 must commence soon! I found that at about disc 4 I started to get much more into it and now I'm a hopeless adoring fan where I was a cautious fan before. I'm shipping Jeremiah/Kurdy but I must note in passing that Markus has a very pretty mouth and I had to watch the "Markus gets drunk" scene twice. Seems like there should be some drunken slash there, doesn't it? Also: Ezekiel is my boyfriend. Of course. *sigh*

Gundam Wing: I watched Endless Waltz again last night, this time the movie version, which seemed to have some extra bits in the middle. I think Duo had more lines than Heero, Trowa, and Wufei all put together. Duo certainly is growing on me, though he will never (never!) supplant Wufei in my affections.

Movies: I was thwarted in my attempt to see Triplets of Belleville yesterday. Today I saw The Station Agent, which I enjoyed a lot. Dear god, Peter Dinklage has a nice voice.

Books: Recently, I tried to read a book on deconstruction. It made my brain hurt. So I got out the next thing on my stack instead: The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio. It's all about the number phi, which is quite unusual.

If you take a line AB and divide it at C so that the ratio of AB to AC is the same as the ratio of AC to CB, then the line has been cut in the Golden Ratio, phi. I'm not a math geek, by the way, but the book has been written for the layperson so I followed things OK.

There's a lot of interesting stuff about how phi (and Fibonacci numbers, which are related) are found in various places in nature. And I thought there was going to be other interesting stuff about where it could be found in art, etc, but it turns out that those reports are greatly exaggerated, so most of that part of the book was debunking. (For example, there's no evidence that the Golden Ratio was used in the construction of the Great Pyramid.) Which isn't as interesting.

There was one bit about the Platonic solids, which are five regular polyhedra whose properties I won't go into. But I looked at the diagram and lo! they were dice: d4, d6, d8, d12, and d20. (Sorry, d10!) So a bit of gamer geekery there.

I do plan to get back to deconstruction at some point.

Beer: I like beer.

I haven't been doing any writing, though I should do a bit tonight. I've been feeling like my input/output ratio was a bit unbalanced, so I'm trying to take in more media of various sorts. Hopefully that will give me new ideas and help me to focus more.

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Jeremiah: I finished up the S1 DVDs. The downloading of S2 must commence soon! I found that at about disc 4 I started to get much more into it and now I'm a hopeless adoring fan where I was a cautious fan before. I'm shipping Jeremiah/Kurdy but I must note in passing that Markus has a very pretty mouth and I had to watch the "Markus gets drunk" scene twice. Seems like there should be some drunken slash there, doesn't it? Also: Ezekiel is my boyfriend. Of course. *sigh*

Ezekiel's MY boyfriend. I love him. And you need to watch S2. Yesterday. Now. I need you. We need you. Hurry your ass up.

And if ever EVER you feel like general Jeremiah squeeing you should find me on IM and we'll talk about Markus's mouth.

I am so in love with you right now I could spit. *g*

Hee! It looks like Jeremiah is giving Markus the Heimlich manoeuvre and Markus has just horked a great wad of gristle across the room.

I should have timed how long it took you to comment. *g* I'm looking for S2 torrents right now, though I am not having much luck.

Whenever Markus is on-screen, all I can do is stare at his pretty, pretty mouth. Unless Kurdy is there with his shirt off. There should be more Shatner shots of Kurdy, frankly. One per episode, minimum.

There shall be squee! But tonight I must try to get some writing done. (GW, I must confess.)

Yes, even I get gogglestrapped when Kurdy takes his shirt off. Or has his shirt on. Or talks. *guh*

Go, go write your crazy robot boys. I'll still be here... *g*

Maybe no one needs me anymore. I want to be needed. I must just be sick. Everyone is going to get the final 8 before I get my tapes or cds or whatever sent out (damn! I wanted to be the big damn hero!)

Innogen

I gave Killa you player specs BTW...we are trying to figure out why the media she sent wont play when it should.

How would sending your kids to Muggle school work? How do you keep a child of five or six from talking about magic?

Put a hex on them?

Aw, poor kids!

You know what I was thinking about the whole schooling thing? HP fic is missing out on the grand genre of Stupid Governess (or Tutor) Romance. All my recent college-grad friends who didn't end up in academia or abroad are teaching . . . And I sort of suspect the same thing happens to Hogwarts graduates who don't know what to do with their lives.

So if you ever wanted an excuse to get a sweet nubile young thing into, say, the Malfoy household, this is it.

Yes, I'd thought of that as well. I wonder why nobody is writing about it? It has all kinds of possibilities.

So if you ever wanted an excuse to get a sweet nubile young thing into, say, the Malfoy household, this is it.

I just had a thought...what if that sweet nubile young thing was Wesley Wyndam-Pryce?

Mmmm.

I think you should change your icon text to nubile ;)

Or do they just assume that nobody will believe the kid if he does?

...y'know, that might also explain some of the pureblood hate, if the kid gets picked on...

Oh, interesting! I'm liking this primary school thing more and more all the time.

doooooooo iiiiiiiiiiiit. 'cause even if they don't get picked on, they'll start looking down on the kids who *can't* fly and who *don't* have monsters in their closets...

HP: I figure that Muggle schooling would only be for Muggle-borns (duh) or halfbloods, who have one foot in both worlds to begin with. For one thing, given how hopeless the Weasleys are with the most basic details of Muggle life, I can't imagine a wizard or witch being able to successfully register their son or daughter for Muggle school without a Muggle's assistance. ("Psst! What's a te-le-phon-e? And why've they got numbers?") So a Muggle or Muggle-born parent is required, meaning that the kids in the household are probably aware early on of the difference between Muggles and wizards, and may have learned very quickly that there's certain things you Just Don't Say to Grandma. For another thing, there are probably some magical families who live smack dab among Muggles, not out away from them like the Weasleys--probably the same ones with Muggle or Muggle-born parents. They wouldn't be able to get away with too much magic in plain view of everyone, meaning that there would be less for the kids to potentially reveal. In fact, I can see a witch or wizard with a Muggle spouse and living among Muggle neighbors concealing most magic from his or her kids until they're old enough not to blurt out every damn thing they hear or see.

Dice: There's a reason that dice are made from the regular polyhedrons (aka Platonic solids): the overall symmetry helps guarentee that no one face is more likely to come up than any other. Therefore, ensuring that each roll is as truely random as possible is just a matter of cunningly arranging the numbers on each face. d10 are a bit more complicated than that.

I figure that Muggle schooling would only be for Muggle-borns (duh) or halfbloods, who have one foot in both worlds to begin with. For one thing, given how hopeless the Weasleys are with the most basic details of Muggle life, I can't imagine a wizard or witch being able to successfully register their son or daughter for Muggle school without a Muggle's assistance.

I think you're right, though it's possible there are a couple of pureblood families who make a point of it as well. Muggle immersion, like French immersion, so the kids will learn how to pass.

I can see a witch or wizard with a Muggle spouse and living among Muggle neighbors concealing most magic from his or her kids until they're old enough not to blurt out every damn thing they hear or see.

Like Seamus. That makes sense. This seems like a really interesting thing to explore. Really, it's the day-to-day stuff of the wizarding world that I find most interesting, not the epic Harry vs Voldemort stuff.

I think you're right, though it's possible there are a couple of pureblood families who make a point of it as well. Muggle immersion, like French immersion, so the kids will learn how to pass.

Can't see that myself. Look at how even the "good" wizards treat Muggles: Arthur Weasley seems to view them as clever savages, and collecting their technology is a hobby like collecting fossils; and Tonks&151;one witch who really ought to know better—seems to find Privet Drive a curiousity and generalizes her father to the entire Muggle world. Unless the child is a Squib and the parents are fairly enlightened, I don't imagine they'd have any any reason to want their kids to "pass" among Muggles.

Really, it's the day-to-day stuff of the wizarding world that I find most interesting, not the epic Harry vs Voldemort stuff.

That's how we know the world of the books is good; when we really, really care about the small stuff. :-)

Unless the child is a Squib and the parents are fairly enlightened, I don't imagine they'd have any any reason to want their kids to "pass" among Muggles.

I certainly don't have any textual evidence, but I can imagine a pureblood wizarding family so paranoid about other wizards (long history of feuding with another family?) that they would like to be able to hide. Or that fear the destruction of the wizarding world by Voldemort or similar and want to be prepared for a new way of life. Or are just highly eccentric. So, not very likely, but it could happen. :)

I'm a little unclear on the definition of pureblood anyhow. Sometimes it seems to mean old wizarding families, like the Blacks. But other times, simply someone whose parents are both wizards, like Harry, whose mother was Muggle-born.

I'm a little unclear on the definition of pureblood anyhow. Sometimes it seems to mean old wizarding families, like the Blacks. But other times, simply someone whose parents are both wizards, like Harry, whose mother was Muggle-born.

Actually, Dumbeldore refers to Harry as a half-blood in OotP. So the only criteria can't be that both parents are magical.*

JKR hasn't given us very good clues about the definition, tho. We know that certain families count as purebloods: the Weasleys, the Malfoys, the Blacks, the Longbottoms and the Crouches come to him. We know that Harry, whose mother was Muggle-born, and Seamus, whose father was a Muggle, are halfbloods. When Ernie Macmillan thinks Harry's going to sic a basilisk on him in CoS, he insists his family is magical unto nine generations, apparently to confirm his "pureblood" status. I believe it's sort of implied that the Diggories are purebloods, and Krum has to be to attend Durmstrang—but Hagrid says in GoF that Harry winning the tournament would prove that "you don't have to be pureblood to do it," with the odd implication that Fleur the quarter-Veela is also classified as "pureblood," but that Hagrid the half-giant is not. Then again, even racists have their preferences: it's more acceptable in the US for a white person to date or marry an Asian or Latino than a black, so perhaps there's an analogy there among wizards.

Of course, in all truth most words don't have precise and carefuly definitions, especially a word that seems to carry as much social and cultural baggage in wizarding society as "pureblood." It's easier to talk about connotations than denotations: a pureblood wizard has a long and uninterrupted magical heritage, and if it's not entirely human, it's at least an acceptable sort of non-human. No limits on how far back the bloodline has to go, but certainly the longer the better; still, so far we haven't heard any purer-than-thou posturing going on. Further, a pureblood witch or wizard is assumed to belong to a certain social and political set, with certain (conservative) values, which helps explain the low standing of the Weasleys.

*It's not possible to have two wizard parents without magical assistance. Normally one of them has to be a witch. ;-)

Actually, Dumbeldore refers to Harry as a half-blood in OotP.

D'oh! You're right. I think I was remembering Harry and Draco's conversation in Madam Malkin's, where Draco asks if Harry's parents were "our sort".

There's this whole muddle between half-blood and Muggle-born. Especially since in PoA it's only the Muggle-born who are targeted by the Heir -- it makes it seem as though he's just fine with the half-bloods. Though I suppose he could have got on to the other half-bloods once the Muggle-born were wiped out.

but Hagrid says in GoF that Harry winning the tournament would prove that "you don't have to be pureblood to do it," with the odd implication that Fleur the quarter-Veela is also classified as "pureblood," but that Hagrid the half-giant is not.

I wouldn't go by Hagrid's implications on anything, though. After all, he did say There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. Which would imply Sirius Black was a Slytherin. (How I wish he were!)

I wonder how the wizards (and witches :P) in other countries feel about this sort of thing.

Well, I think Hagrid does a good job representing what the "wizard on the street" would think about most things, regardless of strict accuracy, and his inclusion of Fleur in the pureblood category seems to indicate a double (triple? Poly?) standard for wizards and witches of non-human descent.

I imagine that attitudes are much the same in other Western countries--I can imagine a New England wizarding family bragging about their "WASP" background and meaning "white Anglo-Saxon pureblood."

If you take a line AB and divide it at C so that the ratio of AB to AC is the same as the ratio of AC to CB, then the line has been cut in the Golden Ratio, phi.

I like the Golden Ratio.

I like phi. I think it's a nice number.

When designing an imaginary house, it can be used to create very attractive imaginary rooms.

I was disappointed that it didn't actually play a larger role in aesthetics. I can understand why so many people are eager to find evidence of it in the pyramids and famous paintings and such. It would be so *cool*. *g*

...though he will never (never!) supplant Wufei in my affections.

Dude, I am a Wufei freak. I never thought anyone else liked him! Crazy. I sound calm, but I'm really restraining myself from the exclamation points. XD

I love him so much! I love his passion and his honour and his melancholy and his obsessession. He was my favourite pilot from very early on.

Mine was Duo first, but then I saw more episodes with Wufei, so I was gone. :D

Jeremiah: I finished up the S1 DVDs. The downloading of S2 must commence soon! I found that at about disc 4 I started to get much more into it and now I'm a hopeless adoring fan where I was a cautious fan before.

Yay!! *does silly but sincerely happy dance*

I'm shipping Jeremiah/Kurdy but I must note in passing that Markus has a very pretty mouth and I had to watch the "Markus gets drunk" scene twice. Seems like there should be some drunken slash there, doesn't it? Also: Ezekiel is my boyfriend. Of course. *sigh*

Oh, my gosh, someone else who ships J/K! I know you don't know me, but can I hug you? *g* And yes, oh yes, re: Markus's mouth and Markus getting drunk and Ezekiel. I think there does need to be some drunken slash there. I think you feel the urge to write it...

I still have the bittorrents I downloaded as quicktime movies on my hard drive. They're about 350 Mb each. If I uploaded them to my server, would you be able to download them?

I'm shipping Jeremiah/Kurdy but I must note in passing that Markus has a very pretty mouth and I had to watch the "Markus gets drunk" scene twice. Seems like there should be some drunken slash there, doesn't it? Also: Ezekiel is my boyfriend. Of course. *sigh*

Oh, my gosh, someone else who ships J/K! I know you don't know me, but can I hug you? *g* And yes, oh yes, re: Markus's mouth and Markus getting drunk and Ezekiel. I think there does need to be some drunken slash there. I think you feel the urge to write it...

Everybody write J/K! Everybody dance! Killa, Hal, Hal, Killa! And now someone send Hal to the vids. To the vids!

(Why am I awake?)

(Why am I awake?)

That's what I was going to ask!

Killa!
When you sent stuff to Sabine, what media did you use? May I ask? And what source material did you use? I'm collecting data in attempts to find something that will play in her darn player....
Inn.

Hiya,
They were DVD-R disks. Probably Verbatim, though possibly Ritek. The source material was standard DVD (VOB) format. It would probably be helpful if you or she could tell me what player she has. It's really the player that matters. There is a slim possibility that adding a menu to the disks, instead of just encoding the episode to start playing automatically, would make a difference. But that's slim. It's really a question of the player and its compatibility with DVD-R. (also, many players with DVD-R issues also cannot play DVD+R)

sabine101! Wake up! We are talking about you LOL!

In my quest to distribute Jerry to the Masses (haven't done it yet) I managed to get Sabine's spec's. She has a Toshiba SD-2800 and here is a general link to DVD Media and Format Compatabilities (http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php?DVDname=&Search=Search&orderby=Name). The complete goods on her dvd player can be found, complete with 48 user reports, here (http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php?DVDnameid=1059&Search=Search&#comments). DVD-R Media is supposed to work, so I'm not sure what the problem is yet.

My source is completely digital, mostly from SVCDs or XVIDs - Would it be possible to look over the set you created? I will gladly return them or pass them on to another needy recipient - whomever you deem worthy! I would very much like to view your set, if possible.

Innogen

In my quest to distribute Jerry to the Masses (haven't done it yet) I managed to get Sabine's spec's. She has a Toshiba SD-2800 and here is a general link to DVD Media and Format Compatabilities. The complete goods on her dvd player can be found, complete with 48 user reports, here. DVD-R Media is supposed to work, so I'm not sure what the problem is yet.

Yes, but sometimes, those reports are not accurate. For example, upon quickly glancing at the results, I see that the Toshiba SD2109 is listed as being DVD-R compatible. However, an independent sampling of testers (http://www.octave.com/cgi-bin/shop/shop.cgi/choice/html_dvd_compatibility#not) found that the 2109 did have trouble with some DVD-Rs, or playback was inconsistent.

DVD-R is a tricky media. A perfect example: At Escapade, I had a number of DVD-R disks that I had created using the same methods, same software, same media.

melina123 had her portable DVD player there. Her player could play some disks, and not others, though they were exactly alike in their media brand/type, file formats, and creation methods. The only difference between these disks? I had authored some with a menu, and some without. I have a wholly unsubstantiated suspicion that certain players will "spin up" a disk so fast that they can miss the 'startup action' cue, and if they don't find a menu, they will fail to play the disk.

My source is completely digital, mostly from SVCDs or XVIDs - Would it be possible to look over the set you created? I will gladly return them or pass them on to another needy recipient - whomever you deem worthy! I would very much like to view your set, if possible.

I don't have any more right now, I'm afraid, and I'm in the middle of setting up a new system, so I don't have my duper set up. I don't really want to spend time doing one-offs, but eventually I will get the duper hooked up and do some more. I'll let you know when I do.

Essentially, DVD-R is nonstandard technology. It's really wiggy. I've now burned and distributed well over 1000 DVDs, and I can tell you that it's voodoo. The only solution is to find a player that's really tolerant, and stick with it. I've got a Panasonic that I swear would play a saltine cracker if you put it in there. Otherwise, you just have to experiment, and hope.

Essentially, DVD-R is nonstandard technology. It's really wiggy. I've now burned and distributed well over 1000 DVDs, and I can tell you that it's voodoo. The only solution is to find a player that's really tolerant, and stick with it. I've got a Panasonic that I swear would play a saltine cracker if you put it in there. Otherwise, you just have to experiment, and hope.

My Apex AD660 can play DVD-Rs SVCD VCDs all just dandy...but it really has trouble with those DVD+Rs. My computer laptop won't deal with any DVDRW plus OR minus, and will only spin up -Rs. I'm a newbie and am still learning. So I'm already benefiting from your experience.

The trouble is that my Apex is old and I would like to get a newer player...I just have to make sure it has flashable ROM and not chip Rom...I enjoy my upgrades too much I guess.

Innogen

Oh, my gosh, someone else who ships J/K! I know you don't know me, but can I hug you? *g*

Dude! You mean most people *don't* ship J/K? What's wrong with them? *hugs back*

I still have the bittorrents I downloaded as quicktime movies on my hard drive. They're about 350 Mb each. If I uploaded them to my server, would you be able to download them?

Oooh, you are a wonderful person! A queen! *hugs you again* I would SO appreciate this, if you're OK for the space and bandwidth. We could do them one-by-one or however works best for you. Or I could always push you cash for CDs too, if you think that might work better.

And I have seen your J/K vid, for which I still owe you fb. (It's on my to-do list, I swear.) The short version is: I liked it a lot. More later.

Dude! You mean most people *don't* ship J/K? What's wrong with them? *hugs back*

I don't know, but I think they got distracted by the hobbity goodness, or else they couldn't help noticing how sexay and how very gay Markus is, and that he has a serious jones for a certain scrappy little pain in the ass. *g* I'm really torn; I can see the case for Markus/Jeremiah, and I think that pairing is a beautiful thing, and yet, I am all about the Jeremiah/Kurdy. I can't help it. I think Jeremiah is so hung up on Kurdy, it hurts. OTOH, most days I think Kurdy is perfectly aware of it, and straight as they come... so that's where the Jeremiah/Markus comes in, for me. *g* Ow, ow, the beautiful pain.

I'm uploading the eps now -- I'll send you a link when they're all up. :)

thanks for the fb on the vid! I'm glad you liked. *beam*

How do you keep a child of five or six from talking about magic?

You don't!

If you listen to five and six year olds they talk about magic all the time. They have invisible friends, their big brothers can fly like Superman, their aunty is a witch who puts bats in the biscuits, there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, a fat man in a red suit brings them presents (with the help of his house-elves), they are scared of the Giant Spiders that lurk in the lavatory, or the ghoul that lives in the attic... - and they are indignant if you suggest that it is all fantasy.

Who would notice the kids who really do have a ghoul in the attic?

True enough. :) I wonder if wizarding kids believe in Father Christmas. He doesn't appear in the sketchy account of Xmas trappings in the book.

hmmm...

Perhaps that's how you spot a wizarding kid - she's the one who says "It's not Santa really, you know; last Christmas I saw Blinkie the elf in a red tea-towel sliding down the chimney with my new teddy and Daddy says you have to leave pillow cases out because we never give Blinkie stockings....", and teacher thinks "in denial but imaginative".

The bit of the JKR interview I found most interesting was the question about pre-Hogwarts schooling: wizard children can either go to Muggle primary schools or be taught at home, as the Weasleys were. How would sending your kids to Muggle school work? How do you keep a child of five or six from talking about magic? Or do they just assume that nobody will believe the kid if he does?

This piece of information demonstrates for me what I think people really, secretly found so upsetting about that interview: that the creator of the Harry Potter series is not nearly as invested in that fictional universe as its fans are. I really think that at this point, she doesn't give a shit whether she can keep the Weasley kids' ages straight; she just cranks out the prose and waits for the money to roll in.

I think if people found this upsetting, then this must be their first fandom. After Chris Carter and George Lucas, I know just how much to expect from the canon creator.

I really think that at this point, she doesn't give a shit whether she can keep the Weasley kids' ages straight; she just cranks out the prose and waits for the money to roll in.

I think that's overly cynical, though. I do think the fans are much more invested in the universe than JKR is, at least at a level of detail and consistency. (That's true for so many canons*.) But that doesn't mean she's grinding them out just for the cash. I think she cares and I think she cares a lot. She's just not meticulous about detail.

Frankly, the most tightly woven universes turn out to the the ones I admire and enjoy a lot, but don't desire to write about. So in a way, I'm grateful for the looseness of the HP canon.

*Including the Bible, I just thought with a lightbulb over my head. Hmm. It might be interesting to take a look at Xianity from a fannish perspective. Only not now cause I'll be late for work.

I concede that I'm feeling pretty cynical these days about JKR and the Potterverse. It may be because I found OotP so disappointing; it may just be that I liked the books better when I read them with my inner four-year-old, eager for a good story, rather than with my critical adult. I really felt, with OotP, that what it needed most was to be rewritten after six months or a year off, that Rowling needs to write some non-HP fic for a while to get her chops back, whether or not it's publishable.

As to Mr. Carter and Mr. Lucas... well, I think cynicism is pretty justified in those cases, don't you? *g*

Perhaps I expect more of JKR simply as the sole author of a series of novels, rather than as the creator/producer of a television series that necessarily is going to involve other people's creative input (unless you're JMS and write every bloody episode yourself). That may be unfair of me, I'm not sure.

I totally agree that the looser and more "unfinished" a fictional universe, the more attractive it is as a source of fanfic. I have to admit that writing fanfic for something is, in my case, an admission that its creators didn't do their job as well as I thought they could; they didn't produce something like Babylon 5 or Earthsea or (for me) Tolkien's Arda or Stephen King's books, something Too Good to Tamper With.

As for Christianity, well, the Bible is an ideal source for fanfic--a combination of multiple versions, the product of multiple authors, self-contradictory, and accompanied by its own deuterocanon (Apocryphal books) and fanfiction (Talmud, midrash, noncanonical books). Plenty of slash fodder, too. *eg*

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The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things.

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great big slash pic spam

Re: great big slash pic spam

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Feeling Frustrated

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DVDs

Re: DVDs

Sabine's Specs

Re: Sabine's Specs

Tolerant Players - Apex AD660

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