On Wed, 28 Aug 1996 23:17:32 -0500 Richard Lawson said:
: Harold Ancell wrote:
:
: You too, Harold? :)
Oh dear, Richard - Are you sitting down? - Me too.
: I haven't had this violent reaction to a 'fic
: since I had Kasumi call Nabiki "Oneechan".
And *that* was a disaster, too. :)
OK, seriously, I have to agree with the "pedants"; The way to
produce enough meat to feed a human for two weeks is to take a cow
and stuff it with enough grain to feed a human for a year. The
relation in the last sentence may be off a little, but you get my
point.
If all the livestock on earth would go *poof* suddenly, we would
be swimming in enough grain to feed the world better than today -
we could easily supply all of the third world and store up for the
next decade.
But that's not the point. All scientific misgivings aside, I am
sad to tell you that it *still* wasn't a story that I particularly
enjoyed. The wonderful, magic thing that I always liked about
_Ranma 1/2_ is that, no matter how earth-shattering the conflicts
get, the characters are still just a bunch of friends, rivals and
acquaintances who keep their conflicts on a purely personal level.
They don't run around saving the world - that's part of the
series' charm. It was kinda allright because it was Akari and not
one of the main characters, but I still felt taken away from the,
well, *personal* atmosphere of the series.
Second, the ending was completely unbelievable. As poignant as it
was, with the philosophical insight about knowledge best left
unshared, There is no way in hell I'm gonna believe that this
reporter figures out with the most tangential clues and evidence
something that most of the regular characters only realized when
it was shoved in their face. Come on, do you really think that
*anyone* in the world would come up with such a deranged idea from
such vague hints?
One thing that I *liked* about it, I'm not sure if it's intended.
The DNA samples that Akari "discovered" were Ryouga's; He was
immune to the livestock disease because he was no real pig; This
implies that his DNA was not actual pig DNA. So it must be at
least partially human, right?
Therefor the pigs that are now bred and eaten all around the world
contain at least partially human DNA in their cells, right? That
would lend some pretty eerie undertones to Ryouga's assurance that
he is "no cannibal". He doesn't say so, because he considers
himself partly a pig - but the bacon must be considered partly
human. Neat! _Within the Candle Flame_ turned around 180
degrees.
Oh, BTW:
: Well, it was my (unwritten) assumption that the virus 'hides' itself in
: the atmoshphere, becoming dormant and benign, until it comes into
: contact with certain kinds of DNA. This would only be possible in an
: engineered virus (and no, I have no idea how; then again, I have no idea
: what exactly anti-matter is).
That's easy! It's exactly the same as normal matter - only the
other way round. :)
: > I'd also shorten the manifesto; you aren't the Washington Post or NYT
: > publishing the Unibomber's ravings (at the FBI's request---and the
: > ploy did work).
:
: You won't belive how much I did shorten it; I basically cut and pasted
: from a couple of web pages and tried to cut down on a lot of the
: ranting. I'll look on tightening it up; maybe I should just rewrite it
: from scratch. I'll get better prose that way.
I *liked* that manifesto. It had just the right balance between
sense and fanaticism. Rewrite it in your own words and it'll be a
winner
Oh, Richard: velocities above lightspeed are perfectly possible;
Tachyons are particles that move faster than light. It's just not
possible to get something from *below* up to or above lightspeed;
As far as science can determine, that is.
This is not the impossible as in "Nobody has managed it yet", but
the impossible as in "It can be *proved* that it doesn't work" -
Unless our current laws of physics turn out to be spectacularly
wrong (Which, as a rule, the don't usually do. They sometimes
turn out to be *slightly* wrong and have to replaced by a better
model, but they seldom are revoked completely).
Sebastian