From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Feb 24 2003 - 07:54:00 MST
On Sun, 23 Feb 2003, Amara Graps wrote:
> Stirling Westrup, Wed Feb 12, 2003 09:47 pm:
>
> >My own personal theory is that they are afraid that any portrayal of
> >the most exciting part of scientific discovery, the "Uh oh, what
> >kind of result is THIS?", will somehow allow the lunatic fringe to
> >gain a toehold and start announcing that the universe is shaped like
> >a chicken, or some nonsense.
>
> No that doesn't seem right to me. The scientists I have experience
> with truly love that moment when the see something and say to
> themselves: "Oh.. now _that_ is odd ..." I don't know of scientists
> who are motivated by what the lunatic fringe will think. Even the
> Mars scientists I know, who have more than their average volume of
> fringe people to deal with, are not driven that way.
In an effort to juxtapose the erudite comments by Amara and Sterling,
I offer (from [1]):
"Grown men go goofy with bead lust and outleap grandmothers and small
children. Stockbrokers scale wobbling ladders with beers and butterfly
nets and flail at the plastic downpour. The inattentive, or most drunk,
get socked in the head with imitation pearls."
"'What's more exciting than shiny round objects when you're trashed?'
said Greg Smith, a college student who has divined one of the many
secrets of the bead."
"The most prestigious throw at Carnival is not a bead at all, but a
coconut, a real coconut, brightly painted and decorated, handed down
from the floats by riders in the predominantly black krewe Zulu.
The coconuts used to be thrown, like beads, but people were prone
to miss. The outcome was, at times, unfortunate."
I'll note as an aside that I believe there are a couple of
festivals, one I think in Spain involving tomatoes and of
course there is the infamous Palio in Siena.
So such levity is not only a U.S. phenomena...
I wonder what an AI would thinks of such foolishness?
===============================================
1. At Marti Gras, a Catch and Fleeting Ecstasy
Rick Bragg, Feb. 24, 2003, NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/24/national/24BEAD.html?pagewanted=print
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Feb 24 2003 - 07:56:15 MST