nelc

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• Commented on Competition Redux!
  My experience of disciplinary hearings is that they're arranged for a Monday and you get told about them on a Friday, so you have all weekend to fret and three sleepless nights to soften you up....
• Commented on Competition Redux!
  I think an approriate reward/punishment for the multi-author "Amy" thread is Tuckerisation the next time you need a list of casualties in a Laundry book....
• Commented on World Cup: engage Grinch mode now!
  The one thing that might stop me from claiming my Scottish citizenship and emigrating north to my ancestral lands (on me mum's side) when the inevitable happens, is the weather. I could probably cope with the summer just fine, but...
• Commented on We need a pony. And the moon on a stick. By next Thursday.
  I don't think there's enough margin for your proof here.......
• Commented on "Write me something fresh and new, but make it just like the last one"
  Navy SEALs are like ninjas: the more there are the less effective they are....
• Commented on "Write me something fresh and new, but make it just like the last one"
  Damn, it's not Kingsley, it's F. Murray Abraham, another good actor who manages to appear in a lot of so-so roles but manages to make them less so-so....
• Commented on "Write me something fresh and new, but make it just like the last one"
  Charlie, when you get tired of being kicked into work by your DM-booted muse, pass her on to me, will you? Meanwhile, if we're talking architectural movies, then there's Thirteen Ghosts, a schlock horror film which features a house that...
• Commented on The latest Hugo awards storm
  And hanging yourself is a worse outcome than a few bruises. What was your point?...
• Commented on The latest Hugo awards storm
  Alas, X being an arse on Twitter is so common as to be a cliché. I suppose the answer is not to be an arse anywhere. And when we've found these perfect beings of shining light, they may not let...
• Commented on The latest Hugo awards storm
  I can't agree that this process has been a smooth demonstration of democracy in action, nor that the result is a consensus of any kind. At the risk of trivialising important issues by comparison with the penny-ante problems of SF...
• Commented on The latest Hugo awards storm
  That's a lot more sensible objection to Ross than any I was reading last night, Charlie. And put that way, I tend to agree. It's still a great shame that things went down this way. Meanwhile, I'm now getting superstitious...
• Commented on Rule 34, meet Kafka
  I was just wondering just what depth of melanin in the skin qualifies as "flesh"-tones....
• Commented on Miscellanea
  Me @5: No, forget Elvis, I don't think that would fit. Maybe if we drag Tolkien into it: 'The Vanyar Portfolio', 'The Vanyar Project', 'The Vanyar Target'? The Vanyar Deadline?...
• Commented on Miscellanea
  Name for the elves book? Something office-related for the second part... 'The something Plan'? Maybe referencing Wagner? 'The Nibelung Plan'? Or maybe 'The Abhuman Resource"? The Elvish Folder? The Elvish Desk? There ought to be a pun on Elvis somewhere...
• Commented on "The next big thing"
  [..] the New Space Opera [..] is no longer terribly sexy. Never! NSO will always be sexy, and needs to be incorporated into every series! I'm looking forward to you adding a space opera plot to the Laundry series....
• Commented on Commercial announcement
  Would it be too spoilerific to just say that that isn't how the series ends? More than that I shall not say....
• Commented on PSA: Why there won't be a third book in the Halting State trilogy
  Dear Charlie, please write a story where Scotland physically detaches from the UK, flies into space, and transforms into a Culture General Systems Vehicle. I want to see what happens after you publish it....
• Commented on Notes from the coal face
  Around here, you have to watch out for mad cyclists taking short cuts over pavement corners — behind the lights, so it doesn't count, apparently — or ignoring lights and just blowing through in an effort to save precious momentum....
• Commented on Lovebible.pl
  This is the real reason that Bob Howard got the attention of the Laundry....
• Commented on Notes from the coal face
  But apparently not enough, since we also have the nasty socialistic laws to reinforce the enlightened self-interest of avoiding accidents....
• Commented on Notes from the coal face
  Put that way, stopping at red lights is coerced behaviour, since it's reinforced by fines, points on your driving licence, and even prison depending how reckless you are. Is a non-coercive (by your definition) approach to traffic safety desirous to...
• Commented on Speaking of book covers ...
  I like the abstract UK cover, but then I like the US Mark Fredrickson covers as illustrations, also. Of course, either is better than the US cover for Neptune's Brood. (Or Saturn's Children come to that.)...
• Commented on Making history personal
  When I say 'new', I mean older than the USA. The main hall at Todaiji was rebuilt in the early 1700s....
• Commented on Making history personal
  The oldest building I've slept in was probably the house I was brought up in, which was a Tudor (Elizabethan, I think) fisherman's cottage. Or, more accurately, a cottage and a half; it had a convoluted history. Oldest building I've...
• Commented on (Flash fiction) A message from the Laundry public relations office
  If the Reptoids are BLUE HADES, then they'd really be neither reptiles nor amphibians, but the clade of some alien tree of evolution, with unknown characteristics. They just happen to look like Terran reptiles....
• Commented on Why Microsoft Word must Die
  ...or even a land war.......
• Commented on Why Microsoft Word must Die
  I vote for a lend war in Asia on two fronts. In winter....
• Commented on Upcoming appearance: Frankfurt Book Fair
  Well, it's still a useful tool... just not for the protagonist....
• Commented on Rinse, Drain, Spin ... more Laundry!
  That was Bob hiding Top Secret info, such as how to get the cover off a nuclear demolition charge without setting it off....
• Commented on Rinse, Drain, Spin ... more Laundry!
  There are two limitations on astronomical basilisks. Firstly, that the effect needs a stereo-optical set-up; Bob's basilisk gun is a stereo digital camera in The Jennifer Morgue. I anticipate that it would require a very long baseline or some advanced...