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boy, that's going way, way back. Let's see, there was a sword named Grayswander right?
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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No worries - Colbert is known to be a serious Tolkien fan, so I think he'd handle any fantasy production with the attention it deserves.
Fyi - Reddit TIL [^]
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Definitely a JRRT fan -- He's got a cameo in Peter Jackson's The Desolation of Smaug
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors - and miss.
Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love" by Robert A. Heinlein
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I hope he makes a cogent series; I would watch it, if only to avoid the books.
Full confession: I started to read book one and got bored before the protagonist even got to Amber. Then I tried the audiobook and had the same response.
I might not be the target audience.
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It might be you, or it might just be that fiction has moved on from a lot of the classics. I've tried getting into a few of the "great old ones", but bounced on them.
TTFN - Kent
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The amount of revising required of an author writing a SF or fantasy story has increased dramatically since the adoption of word processing software. Instead of getting to the end of the book and sending it to the publisher to correct grammar and spelling mistakes, an author is expected to spend more time revising and fine-tuning a story than they did writing it. Or they'll send it to a development editor who will point out which sections need to be cut and what doesn't make sense.
Things have gotten very competitive, and most of the classics would not see print in their present form if they were written today- even ignoring any social issues. Readers won't tolerate a 10,000-word pseudo-historical prologue, or long sections that don't move the story forward or develop the characters. Writers spend time in advance working out the story structure, or even more time restructuring it when they're done.
Famously, Niven & Pournelle were required to cut 60,000 words from The Mote in God's Eye, which resulted in a tightly-written story. Exceptional back then, common now.
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Thank you - great info!
TTFN - Kent
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It's an interesting look at how computer technology has changed storytelling.
Imagine you've written your novel, and it's a 3" stack of typewritten pages. The editor says "This character Charlie doesn't add anything to the story. Take him out." You'd have to page through the whole manuscript looking for places he appears. Maybe assign dialog to someone else. You might have referred to him as "the carpenter" instead of by name, and now there are 5 people in the boat instead of 6. It's a non-trivial task, but not impossible with a word processor if your search-fu is good.
Oh, and it would be more exciting if they don't know about that waterfall ahead until one of them notices the roaring sound. And this section seems confusing and boring- figure out how to fix it.
I think in the old days a novel would either be accepted or rejected as-is, but now reader's expectations are pretty high. My wife and I were recently listening to an audio book of H. Rider Haggard's People of the Mist (1894). He was known for his exciting adventure fiction, but we were both commenting on how it dragged for long sections and was horribly repetitive. And wondering how the protagonist, who's very proactive in the beginning becomes so passive and reactive near the end.
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fyi: where i live (Thailand) the Chinese lunar New Year, this year "Year of the Rabbit," is about to be celebrated: predicted to be an "auspicious" year by those who can seer.
what better visual metaphor for the skill that might keep you from being one of the laid-off multitudes in the tsunami of cutbacks reported to be coming at major software/internet employers than: [^] ?
"that's all, folks" [^]
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
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See the "Made in Sweden" item at 0:26? I wouldn't be surprised if this spread from Sweden to the UK. I recently heard that it's been a thing in Sweden for a while: kaninhoppningstävling = rabbit jumping contest. 
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Greg Utas wrote: I wouldn't be surprised if this spread hopped from Sweden to the UK.
FTFY 
Mircea
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Next year: dragon flying riding contests? 
(Next Chinese year is the Year of the Dragon)
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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... and it's still snowing now. Plus, they don't appear to have gritted the streets at all - they may be striking, I dunno. About an inch, maybe two had settled all over the roads.
But ... Taking herself to work today, I was a little nervous - it's the first time I've driven a DCT car on snow, and I wasn't sure how well it would work. The first thing I found was that even in "fully manual" mode, it won't let me select 2nd gear to pull away.
So I put it back to "Eco", stuck it in drive and set off. It did very well - as well as I'd have done if I had any control over the clutch, and quite possibly better! You could feel the traction control doing it's thing when turning into junctions, but no slides, not nothing.
When we got to her work, I wasn't sure how it would work: there is a hill at the exit and it was well covered. It did fine - even when a car came along so I had to stop on the hill and do a hill start on snow it wasn't phased. And that's on "normal street tires".
OK, colour me impressed with the gearbox software: it knows what it is doing, probably better than I do, so I'll maybe trust it rather more. Still follow the golden rules though: slow and careful, good braking distance, don't mix inputs*.
Enough other idiots out there just slamming the pedal to the metal and praying they don't hit anything ... 
* accelerate, steer, or brake, don't do two at a time
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Great!
(don't eat yellow snow)
>64
Some days the dragon wins. Suck it up.
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Wonderful.
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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I learned late in life the golden rule is such situations is "Stay home , Bake some bread , Re-watch your favorite episodes of Mandalorian , Listen to some great music loudly . Dabble on your next favorite projX ." . By the way what is DCT .
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Dual Clutch Transmission - an automatic manual, sans slush box.
The gearbox has two main shafts, and two clutches - so it permanently has two gears engaged. So an gearchange is just "disengage clutch1, engage clutch 2", then "engage new gear on shaft 1": much, much faster than a human can do it.
But you get no direct control over the clutch, or the engine revs - it's all under computer control.
It gives a smoother drive, better performance, and better economy than a manual gearbox, without being the power drain a slush box is.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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dual clutch car?
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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Mine has an eCVT and I couldn't be happier. It now feels weird and unrefined to get into a car with fixed gears and have to feel it constantly shifting. And the software makes it amazing for snow as well. Glad you made it safe!
Hogan
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Similar here. Cadillac XT4, don't know all the car technical details but with a 10 gear transmission the shifts are very smooth. Plus it has multi-drive modes - front-wheel drive, or three all wheel drive modes, including an off-road/snow mode. Last snow storm here in December, absolutely no issues.
I used to love driving standard shift, but as I have gotten older, and the cars more sophisticated, I am quite happy to keep it in Drive....
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You gotta love people that say: "I drive only stick!" and 90% of those are mediocre drivers to say the least. Human reaction times are north of 200 ms. and cannot beat computerized CVT transmission.
Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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The only thing humans are still better than sensoric is not with reaction, but with anticipation.
I had a couple of situations in the highway (ACC and Tempomatic involved), that driving with a "normal car" (without assistants) I wouldn't have had.
But it is way more confortable. One just need to be conscious of the differences and adapt the driving style.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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My last manual transmission auto was 1988 Honda Prelude. Loved that car. Hated to finally part. Too old, too small. But when I did a series of test drives looking for the replacement, I rediscovered the ease of auto transmissions. Never looked back. Settled on Sabaru Outback. Amazingly smooth and stable in all weather. But it finally became to old expensive to fix. Drive a toyota with autotrans.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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